


shiranai love☆

by umigay



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game), Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Closure, F/F, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Grieving, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2018-10-30 08:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 34,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10873095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umigay/pseuds/umigay
Summary: "she was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances."~-~a girl searches for closure.





	1. forgive me for asking so many things of you☆

_September 8 th, 2016_

Audible pattering rings in your mind, even seconds after the rain hits the half-open window. Something about the atmosphere in the room is odd, as if there could be a presence with you, but you know that’s impossible. After all, you’ve never believed in ghosts. It’s just a myth, something to make those haunted house attractions in theme parks pull in more money.

You remember being a child and watching the ghost discovery shows on the television, your eyes glued to the screen as you fixated your gaze on the ghostly apparitions. That was a time when you believed in mythological beings. You would strap cheap wings from the kids’ accessory store onto your back, running around your garden and pretending you were a fairy while Honoka laughed and asked if she could have a turn with the wings. You’d always say no, of course. You never wanted to take the wings off – if you _believed_ you could fly, you felt as if you really could.

Though lately, you don’t think you’ll ever be able to lift off the ground again.

Gloomy September weather has kicked in by now, the rain having lasted almost the entire day, from four o’clock in the morning when you rose, through your dull, dreary college lessons, into your lunch spent at the coffee shop, landing a table next to a cheery couple being far too disruptive, and finally, here. Studying. Only there’s something keeping you from doing such a thing. Perhaps it’s that the clock’s ticking has become excessively loud in your mind. It’s always been a background noise, but it appears to be clearer now, now that your mind has been blanked and you’re just sitting, waiting for anything to grab you from the depths of mundane living. Everything is so ordinary, so boring, it’s become eerie – the silence in your dorm room (your roommate is never around during the day) and the loudness of your thoughts.

Eight days through the month, and you’re feeling exhausted already – college has only been ongoing for a week and you’ve had enough. Classes become boring, an hour spent sitting, idly taking notes as a lecturer speaks words you cannot process in your mind. The weather grows darker and gloomier as the days go by, autumn rearing its ugly head with promises of winter to come. You’ve never liked the cold – well, that’s a lie. There was a time you liked the cold; winter brought promises of warmth, fireplaces lit, snuggled under a cosy blanket watching sappy TV shows and eating chocolate and other comfort food she cooked for you. Or walking through the park, decked out in warm winter jackets and woolly hats she knit for you both, matching, one decorated with a swirly letter ‘K’ and the other with a surprisingly elegant ‘U’.

You would walk together, gloved fingers entwined as you kicked the snow out of your merry path, breathing out fog and huddling closer as you grew colder. Then you’d lie atop the shimmering white snow, stretching out your arms and legs to form snow angels, something she proposed to you the first Christmas you spent together; she lay down on the snow and started forming her own, and that was when you told her she was her own kind of angel all year around, and you saw the light pink blush dusting her cheeks, a rare occasion, you noted. You can still remember how it made your heart swell with pride as she ducked her head bashfully, twirling a lock of caramel hair around a manicured finger, and the colour rising to her cheeks as the compliment settled in. You made sure to compliment her often after that.

You lean back in your chair, pen abandoned atop the blank paper which you should be filling with a 1500-word literature essay. Even the sound of the pen dropping alone is a nuisance, something out of place in the quiet atmosphere of the room. It’s fine when your roommate is there; she fills the room with her presence, sprays her perfume all over in the mornings, and kicks her shoes halfway across the room lazily before collapsing on her bed. It’s only when she leaves that the real silence reaches you, and it feels even louder than when she’s around.

You sit quietly with your thoughts a moment longer. Of winter, of the biting cold weather to come, of the potential of snowfall. You wonder how much it will snow this year, if at all. You’ve been seeing less snow over the years. Melancholy fills your heart – as seasons change, memories fade, she always used to say to you, cradling her face in your hands, before she’d smile and lean in; _“but with every season, the potential for new memories arrives.”_ She kissed you then, and the two of you watched the stars together for the rest of the night, fingers interlaced in the lazy yet instinctive way they always were.

Memories don’t fade so easily now. They keep on arriving, but not in the form of new memories – old bits of your past, whether it’s from a photograph or a colour or someone’s hair. Sometimes you walk past an accessory shop and see, on display in the shop window, a beautiful emerald green bow; it’s enough to make you want to get back to your dorm room and collapse. But you’re strong. You’ve always been strong, isn’t that exactly what she told you?

You exhale, lean forward, pick up the pen and begin your essay.

~

_September 9 th, 2016._

You hand in your essay in the morning, and look out the window to see the clouds growing darker. A girl in the front row clicks her tongue and states it’s about to rain – the class groans, and you take your seat, glad to have made it all the way across the class to the teacher’s desk and back unnoticed. You sit in the back corner, isolated from your classmates; when you were told to sit wherever you liked, it was the natural choice for you.

The rest of class passes uneventfully, rain starting slowly, but fastening its pace until the familiar sound of water pattering against the window, precipitation blurring the view outside the window, campus blending together until nothing is comprehensible from where you sit. You hear grumbled complaints, but with a silence from the professor, they eventually subside, leaving just the occasional sigh or click of a pen in the silent class, paper rustling being the only noise keeping you distracted from the thoughts.

Autumn’s never been your favourite season. It’s come close, before; it’s the transition from summer to winter, crunchy leaves on forest grounds and hot chocolate by a cosy fire. She always made the best hot chocolate, stirring elegantly before dropping in a few fluffy marshmallows, some pink, some white, but always an even number of each – usually one of each. She always loved simplicity, how every little detail counts. She brought that onto her sewing, as well – every delicate embroidery, every small pattern had so much love put into it that you found it impossible not to smile every time she wore her own hand-made dress, or, even, designed one for you for your birthday or Christmas.

In return for her elegant designs, you wrote eloquent poetry for her – lines of little love confessions, written in cursive on small post-it notes and taped to her desk, her wall, her mirror, anywhere you saw fit. You left love notes for her in the mornings, or after you left her home in the evenings. You doodled out little haikus in particularly dull classes and would subtly slide them into her backpack during lunch break for her to find later and read to herself. Sometimes Honoka would peer over your shoulder and ask you what you were doing, and you remember how quickly your face would flare up with heat, and by then it was painfully obvious what you were doing – but Honoka’s always been oblivious. She always whined about how she wasn’t in on the secret, but perhaps she knew deep down.

The thought reminds you – you make a mental note to text Honoka later. Life on campus has been so hectic, yet so unbearably dreary at the same time, it would be nice to take a break and talk to her. After all, you know Honoka’s been left on her lonesome just as you have. She’s known to have clung onto that girl, the one with short hair whose name you can never remember because you never really saw her often; when you did, Honoka was hanging off her arm, whining about something or chomping on bread she’d been given to calm herself down. From what you could see, the girl was calm, collected, and good at keeping Honoka in order – but after a while, she stopped appearing, and nobody questioned it. It was just as well, really; Honoka didn’t seem willing to talk.

 _Everyone leaves eventually._ You remember being told that, in the panic-stricken night after one of your high school friends was abandoned by her lover. In between choked sobs, she told you never to trust, never to love, unless you want to face the consequences – love can only lead to loss, and she told you never to learn that the hard way.

The professor dismisses you, and the class files out, prepared students whipping out umbrellas and walking briskly back to their dorms or to the coffee shop or anywhere to escape the rain, whereas less organised students throw jackets over their heads and make a run for the nearest shelter. You, however, take a slow walk, allowing your navy blue hair to become soaked by the rain, blouse sticking to your shirt and slowly becoming see-through, a miserable mess in a sea of panicked students. Nobody sneaks a second glance at you; you suppose they’re used to seeing the lonesome girl walking back from her literature class every Tuesday afternoon. Gloomy, dark, unapproachable. No wonder nobody’s tried to make friends with you yet, you think to yourself. Slowly retrieving your phone from your pocket, you text Honoka as quickly as possible as water droplets splash onto your phone screen, before tucking the phone back away and looking up at the sky, dark clouds fading into ever so slightly lighter greys in a dull monochromic ocean above your head, and you repeat the words in your mind, the words spoken through a cracked voice, words you never took seriously until now, when you’ve experienced, when you’ve been broken yourself-

_Love only leads to loss. Everyone leaves eventually. Don’t love, unless you want to learn this the hard way._

It’s only now, when it’s too late, that you realise the truth of her words.

~

_September 3 rd, 2012_

She smells of vanilla that day, the sweet scent infiltrating your senses in a way you don’t mind whatsoever. It’s a Monday afternoon, autumn, leaves turning orange and weather turning colder. You don’t particularly mind, though – it’s nice to walk home in autumn, huddled in a jacket, taking in the scenery as it turns colourful, in the dark, hazy autumn colour scheme.

New season means new sewing projects; no more bikinis and tank tops, no more lacy, frilly crop-tops, no more short skirts for another year. You’ve always preferred the way she knits scarfs and gloves and sews jackets and sweaters more than her summer clothing. Last year, she knit two beautiful woolly hats, one with the letter _H_ and one with _U_ , as a present for both you and Honoka. It wasn’t a particularly special occasion – in fact, it was closer to her birthday than either of yours, Honoka’s having passed in the heat of summer and yours set to arrive during the transition of winter to spring. You’ve found yourself wearing it and favouring it far too often, taking in the delicate embroidery, admiring every little thread in the hat, every pattern, every detail.

Just admiring the finished project doesn’t do it justice – watching her work is what’s truly magical. The way she deftly crafts, knowing exactly what’s she’s doing, whether it’s using a needle and thread or an advanced sewing machine or knitting or any method you can think of. You find yourself in a trance every time you watch her, and you’re not proud of it; she always manages to catch you staring, and flashes you that smile, the sickeningly sweet smile you’ve grown to love and hate – love, because how can you not? It’s so beautiful, so sweet and you cherish it so badly, yet – hate, because you always fall victim to it. You can’t resist it, and it can be a downfall when she has something she wants; that and her pout, two things you cannot turn down in fear of possibly hurting the feelings of such a frail, delicate being, someone so perfect, as if carved by an angel – how can you resist that?

She smiles at you once more that afternoon, dimples in her cheeks becoming apparent as she offers a light wave, to which you breathlessly return, hoping she doesn’t notice the flush rising in your cheeks – if she does, she doesn’t mention it, and sits beside you in her usual cheerful spirit, clapping her hands together in preparation for the hour to come. You always wonder how she’s so optimistic when it comes to school; she always manages to find the light in everything, and, to you at least, she _is_ the light in many things.

You don’t feel the same way about Honoka; you care for her, and often find her annoyingly lovable, with her overly optimistic character and obliviousness and the blunt way she often speaks, alongside her determination and strength of character. But it’s different with her. She’s got a different aura about her – of course, she and Honoka are hardly similar, despite their childhood friendship; they have plenty of differences, one being that she knows when to stop talking whereas Honoka doesn’t. But it’s not that which differentiates them for you.

You’re comfortable around Honoka. You always have been. You can lie back as she rambles on about this and that and feel quite content, perhaps with a little sigh of irritation as Honoka becomes more exaggerated in her story-telling, but you’ve found there can be comfortable silence between the two of you when the talking is done. It’s different with her. When there’s silence, you find yourself on edge, trying to find something to occupy yourself, and every little compliment she throws at you absent-mindedly makes you flare up and blush like a lovesick schoolgirl. Your heart flutters when she shows you any affection, whether it’s casually leaning her head on your shoulder or pushing stray strands of hair behind your ear, fleeting touches like brushes of hands, the close way the two of you sit together, her clinging onto your arm as you attempt to keep your composure. That, to the more obvious touches, like when she takes your measurements for a new design she’s working on, or when she throws her arms around you when she hasn’t seen you for a while, or when she kisses you lightly on the cheek to try to cheer you up. It’s always worked. How can it not, when the lightest touch makes you feel that way?

Your feelings towards Honoka are ones of close friendship, finding solace in her oblivious nature at times. She’s capable of taking your mind off things fairly well, and sometimes she’s a nice escape from the overwhelming anxiety you get when speaking to your other friend. But you don’t feel the same flutter from when she grabs you by the hand to drag you somewhere, or when she nuzzles her head against your shoulder, her own little sign of affection. Sure, you feel the warmth of care for her when she’s acting especially Honoka-like, but it’s nothing like what you feel for _her_.

“Thinking about me?”

You slam your hands on the desk. “K-Kotori!”

Your classmates turn their heads to peer at you, the loud bang of the palms of your hands hitting the table a distraction from the dull work set for you. Kotori, with a smile that’s far less innocent and more cheeky than usual, giggles in her usual manner, and you feel your anger simmer down immediately.

“You should have seen your face, Umi!” she says in that chirpy voice, which always very much reminds you of the birds which sing outside your window in the mornings. “It’s only me. Don’t be scared.” She touches your arm, and you feel the strangest sense of reassurance, overwhelmed with the heart flutters returning to you. Her desk is laid out flawlessly as usual, pastel pink pencil case positioned neatly atop a matching pastel folder filled with revision notes, her textbook out in front of her, opened to the correct page without instruction from the teacher. Honoka always marvels at both of your organisational skills; you try to help her with studying, but she never seems to be able to pay attention for too long.

“It’s very odd of you to not have everything laid out already, Umi,” Kotori says, and you’re startled once again, before realising what she’s saying is true. A mixture of her vanilla scent, the kind smile, the small shock she gave you and the way she’s just so like _herself_ today is enough to distract you to the point of not setting your work out as you usually do. She tilts her head, caramel-brown hair falling from behind her shoulder, touching the desk and falling right down to settle on her thigh beneath the table. “Is something the matter?”

“N-No, nothing.” You move your hand so abruptly your pencil falls off the table, landing on the floor with an audible tap. Excusing yourself in a mumble, you lean over and scramble for the pencil on the ground, all whilst fighting off a blush – this is so very unlike you. When you meet her gaze again, she’s still looking concerned, eyes slightly widened as you stare awkwardly back.

She opens her mouth to speak, but is interrupted by the teacher’s sudden arrival in the room, five minutes late. You silently thank any god that exists for the teacher’s breezy entrance, because you’re not sure you could have handled any more conversation with Kotori. She immediately tunes into the lesson, leaning slightly forward on her table and making delicate, neat notes as she takes in what the teacher is saying. You try to focus, but your gaze keeps trailing from the board to the girl next to you, stomach butterflies dwindling in your stomach and your pen tapping against the desk, causing some people to scoff at you from where they sit. You lean to the side, reaching your hand down to scramble for the pen blindly, until you feel a strangely warm hand over your own and meet her gaze as she picks the pen up for you, with an angelic smile that nearly knocks you off the plastic chair.

You face the front, let navy hair so dark it could be called black fall in front of your eyes and conceal your view of her. It’s best you don’t have any distractions; exams are coming up, and this little crush – if you can even call it a crush at this point – won’t do you any good at all. Perhaps you’re just confusing feelings of love with feelings of strong friendship. It wouldn’t shock you; you’ve never really had many friends outside of Honoka and Kotori, so maybe you’re just overwhelmed. Befuddled by the sudden onslaught of acceptation and support from your two best friends, which has somehow contorted your mind into thinking you really have _those_ kinds of feelings for the caramel-haired angel.

Which is absurd, of course. Such feelings, especially towards another girl, is what you’ve always been told is shameless. Shameless, shameless, shameless, as people wonder how that word seems to come out your mouth so often and you haven’t the heart to mention to them that the word itself has been drilled into your mind since you were ever old enough to develop interest in other people and romance, especially _girls_.

The bell tugs you out of your thoughts, and you begin to blush furiously as you realise you were just thinking about _that_ right next to Kotori. The girl herself turns to you, smiling; she’s already holding her lunch-box, and you realise yours is still in your bag. Scrambling to get it, she giggles as she watches you.

“You’re acting a little odd today, Umi.” She tilts her head slightly to the side, caramel hair losing support from her shoulder and falling sideways. “Is something the matter? I’m a little worried-”

“I’m fine,” you say, too quickly; she looks startled and jumps back a little.

“I-I’m sorry, you don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to-”

“I’m _fine_!” You regain your breath after interrupting her a second time, only this time louder. As her face falls, you immediately regret it; “There’s nothing to talk about, because there’s nothing wrong. I’m just tired.”

“Okay, Umi.” Her voice is silent, barely a hush. She doesn’t believe you. You can see it in her eyes, the way she’s analysing you and trying to read your body language – she’s not convinced by your words. She shuts up, to your relief, and the two of you begin to walk to meet Honoka on the school rooftop.

As you mentally curse yourself whilst walking up the stairs in silence, neither of you knowing how to converse after your miniature outburst, you grimace to yourself. _Well done, Umi_.

That was the first time you ever lashed out at Kotori, and you swore to God that it would be your last.

~

_September 9 th, 2016_

You gently blow on your mug, feeling the steam against your face, warming you from your cold surroundings. Opposite you, Honoka regards you with an expression you can’t really decipher – it’s nothing like you’re used to, but you know better than to ask her personal questions out of the blue. Since your drinks arrived, the two of you have sat in silence, sipping gratefully out of the hot drinks and shivering after losing contact with them. Before that, you merely made small talk, about the weather, about winter’s impending arrival, about how college has been treating you. Honoka’s quiet, unusually so. Even after the incident, she was talkative as ever – if possible, even more so, maybe trying to compensate for the sudden silence, the missing lines in the conversation being filled in by meaningless chatter. For a while, you thought she was going mad. But now she sits, staring emotionlessly at the table as you shuffle awkwardly in your seat.

“It feels like winter already,” you attempt, and she looks up, her empty gaze meeting yours, and nods slowly before returning to her previous position. You think about asking her what the issue is, but your breath hitches and catches before you can speak; one look at her, and you know you can’t be as stupid as to just _ask_ if something’s the matter.

You stand up, and she doesn’t look surprised. Instead of leaving with your drink and paying the woman at the counter as she most likely expected you to do, you move around and sit by Honoka. You notice she doesn’t have a scarf around her neck, and she’s shivering ever so slightly now that you’re closer and can see – you extend your scarf and wrap it to accommodate her neck as well, whilst still maintaining the distance between you. Honoka needs space. You know better than anyone that if Honoka feels trapped, she’ll slowly descend into some form of a panic attack, sudden fear, and will do anything to escape – you learned that from experience, after quite a nasty bruise from being kicked in the stomach. You still remember the wind being knocked out of you, and her terrified expression afterwards and the time she spent furiously apologising, only to shudder and cry in the end.

Her head moves upwards ever so slightly, and then turns around until her gaze meets yours once more. “U-Umi?” She says it like it’s a question, and you nod. “I… I want to know something.”

Your heart jumps a little, like it does anytime someone says that kind of question. But you nod once more and she shifts a little so she’s angled to face you.

“You know what’s coming up, right?”

You nod.

“Are you going to visit her?”

You hesitate, but eventually nod.

“I think…” Honoka averts her gaze, choosing instead to look out the window at the dark, eight p.m., winter-like sky. “I think it should be the last time we go there for a… a long time.”

Your heart stops for a second. You feel your eyes widen against your will, and you quickly restore to your usual facial expression, but with slightly furrowed brows. You don’t quite know how to feel about what she’s saying. Visiting her is the only thing that makes you feel just a little bit closer to her, even if you aren’t physically together. To take that away from you… You shake your head.

“I… I don’t…”

“Please.” She tugs on your jacket sleeve, eyes filled with desperation. “It hurts you, Umi. It hurts me, too. Every time we go there, you stay there for so long and watching you _hurts_ and being there hurts and everything hurts and I’m so… I’m so confused-” Tears begin to well up in her eyes, and she hides her face by leaning closer to your chest, one hand tightly clenched around your sleeve and the other supporting her on your shoulder, “I’m so confused, and I don’t know what to do or why I’m even here when every day feels this way. P-Please, just…” Her voice trails off as she lets out a choked sob into the winter jumper Kotori made you in the third year of high school. It’s too big and the sleeves fall too low because she accidentally made an error in measurements, but you wear it every year as winter draws in, the feeling of the fabric against your skin reminding you of when you put it on the first time that one Christmas and she frantically apologised for the measurement errors, only for you to kiss her on the cheek despite your embarrassment and tell her it was okay. You saw her blush again that day – it was a nice feeling, knowing you made her happy.

“Honoka.” You’re conflicted. You know Honoka’s in pain – you know she’s in pain every day, just like you are, but to just cut out visiting altogether… “I-I can’t. I can’t, it’s the only way I can-”

“It’s not!” she interrupts, not moving her head but instead shaking uncontrollably with what you assume to be tears. “You may think it’s the only way you can feel close to her, or the only way you can find closure, but it’s _not_. Every time you visit the memory gets clearer and it comes back to you all at once and it _hurts_ you, Umi, can’t you see that?! Why can’t we j-just… why can’t we…”

“Why can’t we what?” you demand. “What is it we can do, Honoka? I’m never going to find closure. I’m never going to move on. I _loved_ her, why can’t you… why can’t you under-”

“Why can’t _I_ understand that?” Honoka looks up finally and your heart pounds as you find rage hidden behind the sadness in her eyes. “Why can’t I understand?! I loved her too, Umi! I may not have loved her the way you did but I loved her just as much! Y-You need to stop being so _selfish_ , Umi!” She stands up and grabs her drink off the table, the scarf falling from both of you and landing on the red booth you’re sitting at.

“I hope you realise this is the right decision,” she says. “Don’t contact me again until you do.”

With that, she turns and walks out the diner, tossing some money at the counter before she leaves.

~

_September 10th, 2012_

“Twenty-one days until Halloween month,” Honoka points out as the three of you sit in her room, Kotori working on a design for a dress and you helping Honoka with her English assignment. You roll your eyes as Kotori giggles.

“It’s my birthday _first_ , Honoka!” she says, with a look of mock offence, and Honoka sticks her tongue out before bursting into laughter at Kotori’s face.

“You should be focusing on your assignment, not Halloween,” you state sternly, and Honoka pouts, letting her head slam down onto the table over her unfinished assignment. You tap her on the back with a pen and she groans, Kotori watching the two of you with a tranquil smile on her face.

“Let her have a break, Umi,” Kotori says, and she looks you directly in the eyes, your heart fluttering again with the exchange. “She’s worked hard for the past two minutes, that’s a record for her.”

You can’t help but laugh at that as Honoka whines at Kotori’s cruelty, to which the caramel-haired girl laughs, the sweet sound you can never get enough of. Honoka gets back to her assignment, Kotori continues to work on her sketch, and you get out some work of your own to complete.

For a while, it’s just the three of you, doing your own thing in complete, comfortable silence. Honoka looks concentrated – you can tell by the way her tongue sticks out only slightly as she works, her head tilting from side to side as she swiftly moves her pen across the page, finally getting a grip of what she needs to write after you’ve explained it to her countless times. Kotori looks as concentrated and peaceful as she always does when she works on designs, as her nimble designer hands work on the sketching. She leans close into the page, taking care of every detail as she sketches; you’ve always wondered how she can get such tiny, tiny details onto paper just from her own head – anything from little lines and shadows in places to make it look even more beautiful, to patterns which you could have never imagined, even with your own creative imagination. You prefer to use yours to write, from stories to poetry to songs; she uses her artistic abilities for sketching designs and Honoka uses her imagination in conversation, with huge exaggerated hand motions and crazy, over-the-top stories.

“Finished!” Honoka exclaims suddenly, causing both you and Kotori to jump as the hyperactive girl waves her finished assignment in the air. It’s such an odd transition from concentrated to the usual bubbly Honoka you know that you’re taken aback for a moment, but you quickly raise a hand and grab the assignment from her.

“I’m going to look it over,” you state, and Honoka pouts, sitting back down where she’s been working. “If it’s not good enough, you’ll have to make changes.”

Honoka looks deflated as she nods, not bothering to argue back. Kotori’s fixated on her work with a small smile spreading across her angelic features, as if sharing a joke with herself. You read over Honoka’s essay, fighting away the blush forming on your face and attempting to focus as you circle her spelling and grammar errors in red pen. Honoka watches helplessly as you circle and cross out, before you click your pen shut and hand the paper back to her.

“Other than grammar errors, you’ve not done that badly,” you say, and the expression that lights her face reminds you of a child on Christmas Day.

“You really think so?” she exclaims, and you nod.

“Fix those errors and you’re done for the day.”

Honoka nods, her grin looking as if it was about to come off her face at the ears, and leaned down to fix her mistakes at rapid speed. Meanwhile, Kotori’s looking over her design, turning it and checking each little detail in it. She must notice you staring at her inquisitively, as she turns the sketchbook around for you to see.

The dress is beautiful. An array of pink and blue in a mixture you never thought could work before now, the dress drapes perfectly around the model figure she’s sketched, a flowery headpiece attached with flowers of pink, blue and yellow stitched across the top – golden connected circles line the torso and frills hang loosely from the arms, the blue layer of the skirt pinned up by elegant pink flowers, with gold lining underneath and a cream-coloured skirt underneath, the inside of the blue fabric a rosy pink colour. You don’t know much about fashion, but you can recognise beauty when you see it; Kotori giggles at the way your eyes widen at the sight of the majestic dress.

“Do you like it? It’s Victorian-inspired.” She takes back the design and looks at it with a peaceful look of content. “It will be a little on the expensive side to make, considering all the materials required, but I’m determined to have it done by this time next year.”

“Next year…” It seems so far away, but you can’t wait to see Kotori’s dress in action. You think about how she’ll look, twirling, the beautiful skirt moving with her as she spins elegantly, flowery headpiece framing her face and light, wavy hair bouncing around her shoulders. Thinking like this isn’t a good idea, since you’re sure that your face is flaring up as usual.

“I won’t give up on this,” she says, smiling down at the design. “I’ll finish this dress, even if it kills me.”

“U-Uh… that sounds a little extreme…”

Kotori giggles, a delicate hand flying over her mouth. “I wasn’t being serious, Umi. Although I will most likely pull several all-nighters working on this.”

“Don’t work too hard,” you say, just as Honoka collapses on the desk with a groan.

“ _Don’t work too hard_?! Why don’t you ever say that to me?!” she complains dramatically. You and Kotori both offer exasperated sighs as Honoka rants about your unfairness – you take the time to look over the paper. She’s corrected everything she needs to.

“It’s getting quite late, Honoka. I should call your mum to pick you up,” Kotori offers, and Honoka falls backwards in an over-dramatic flop, covering her face with a pillow.

“Get some rest, Honoka,” you say and she turns on her side. Kotori stifles a laugh and you both exchange a knowing glance. It’s not unlike Honoka to be like this sometimes, but it’s all part of her charm.

Eventually, you do call Honoka’s parents, and they pick her up within five minutes, apologising profusely for their daughter’s tiredness. Honoka whines on the way out, moaning something about bread and sleep, and you hear a soft giggle from beside you as she’s practically dragged out of the house by her parents. Kotori’s mother smiles fondly as Honoka leaves, before turning to you and Kotori.

“How long are you staying here for, Umi?” she questions, and you think.

You’d like to stay here forever. The atmosphere is so calming – her mother is an amazing cook, the aroma of dinner being prepared filling the house, and of course, you’re happy to spend as much time as possible with Kotori. The girl herself is beaming at you, hands clasped behind her back and an eager expression on her face; you wonder if she wants you to stay as well.

“I don’t believe I have any more homework, so I can stay a while longer,” you manage to stammer out, the angelic expression on your friend’s face taking you aback far more than you expected.

She offers a small cheer and giggles, her mother’s face spreading into the kind-hearted smile you’re so used to from spending a lot of time here as a child. When the two of you were around six, you would be here every day after school. You really didn’t mind, not at all; you wanted to become her best friend, and you wanted to spend time with her.

“Then that’s perfect. I’ve made too much food anyway,” she says, a little sheepishly as she scratches her nose.

“Mu-um, you always make far too much. I can’t eat such large portions, you know,” Kotori mock-whines with a pout on her face. She looks so adorable, you wish you could take photographs with your eyes just so you could save that pouty expression. _Way to be creepy, Umi_. You expel the shameless thought to the back of your mind.

“I always forget to half the ingredients, so I end up making dinner for four each time.” Kotori’s mother clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “You’re very lucky to have inherited your father’s intelligence rather than mine, Kotori. It would be a disaster to have two clumsy people like myself in this house.” She giggles, a more mature version of Kotori’s trademark giggle, and you realise just how similar they are. Kotori grins and nods.

She takes your hand, catching you by surprise as a blush quickly navigates its way to your face, smiling gently as she leads you back up the stairs. _The power of Christ compels you, shameless thoughts,_ you mouth to yourself, trying to calm your blushing before it gets out of hand.

The two of you spend some time in Kotori’s room, Kotori talking through her sketchbook of designs and you listening intently, hanging onto every word she says, though after a while you find yourself less focused on her beautiful designs and more focused on her rose pink lips – you find that they’re moving, but you can’t hear what she’s saying. After a while, you realise it’s gone silent, and you look up to find Kotori regarding you with a concerned expression.

“Umi, are you okay?” she asks. “You look quite out of it. I hate to bring it up again, but could it be anything to do with what happened in class a few days ago?”

You avert your gaze, unable to lie, but also unable to tell the truth. She looks so worried, her eyes bearing a spark of concern as she awaits your response. Upon realising you weren’t going to speak, she sighs softly and scoots around so she’s sitting next to you. You feel a gentle touch on your arm, and suddenly a very warm, very soft pressure. She leans on your arm and rests her head on your shoulder, her hands wrapped around your forearm and her eyes closing, revealing long, curled lashes. You want to kiss her right then, but something about the feeling of her warmth makes it hard for you to move, not wanting to ruin anything, not wanting her to ever let go.

“I don’t like it when you’re distant, Umi,” she says, her voice a cross between a whisper and quiet speaking. “It worries me, and I think Honoka, as well. I know you’re often stuck in your imagination, so sometimes you don’t want to talk, but… this all feels different. It feels like there’s something really big on your mind that you haven’t told us about. Would I be correct?”

Your throat feels dry, but something about her voice compels you to nod.

“I see.” She opens her eyes, staring ahead at the sketchbook lying open on the coffee table. The sound of her alarm clock ticking on the small table by her bed is the only sound keeping the room from total silence. She doesn’t let go of your arm, but lifts her head off your shoulder and turns to face you. Your lips are so close, if you leaned in even slightly, they would undoubtedly touch. You wonder how much of a mess you must look to her, flushed face and wide eyes, then realise she looks the same way, her mouth slightly open as if inviting a kiss.

“I have something to tell you, Umi,” she says, moving her head back only slightly, sending a feeling of disappointment through your mind, only to dissolve when her words sink in. You feel as if you can’t speak, and she continues, a blush covering her own cheeks.

“I like you.”

Your heart stops. The warmth on your arm becomes increasingly hotter and spreads across your entire body, your breath hitching as you process the words. Three words, so commonly spoken, yet you begin to shake more than you do before delivering presentations. Only this time, it’s not with anxiety. It’s with pure disbelief, fear of what’s to happen next. With these three words, the two of you have trespassed, further beyond the safe, comfortable boundaries of your friendship, the friendship you’ve held so dear since you were a child, playing on the swing-set and climbing the trees with Honoka.

You know there’s no way you can ever go back. Now that it’s been said, it’ll never go back to the way it was, no matter how hard you try. You gulp and nod, wondering how to convey your own feelings. Thoughts run through your head at a million miles per hour as you try to form some comprehensive sentence but all that can come out is a single, short exhale.

There’s no way you could formulate a sentence at all like this, so you opt for the second option. Your heart beating, you lean forward and capture Kotori’s lips in your own, jolting at the sudden, intense warmth overcoming you, but quickly relaxing and moving a hand up to cradle her soft cheek, feeling her surprise slowly melt away into relaxation as well. The strangest thing about it is how right it feels; even if you’re stepping in uncharted territory, somewhere you’ve never been before, it feels like you’ve meant to have been here all along. The sound of the clock reminds you you’re here, alive, your lips pressed against Kotori’s as the two of you embrace one another. You feel something wet on your cheek and move back quickly, only to find tears spilling from Kotori’s hazel-brown eyes. She looks down, covering her face with her hands.

“I’m sorry, Umi. I just…”

You nod and, instead of leaning in to kiss her again, you wrap your arms around her shoulders, patting the back of her head as you nuzzle your head in the crook of her neck. She sobs into your shoulder, and you wonder if it’s because of happiness, pent-up emotion, or something else. Whatever it is, you pray you haven’t done anything wrong, despite feeling hot tears prickling at your own eyes.

It seems like an age before the two of you part, Kotori sniffing slightly and rubbing the remaining tears from her eyes. She looks up at you and a relieved smile crosses over both of your faces, no words needing to be said. You hear her mother calling you from downstairs, and the two of you walk down in silence. For the duration of the meal, it’s mostly Kotori’s mother speaking and Kotori occasionally contributing, as you eat your food almost robotically, thoughts swirling around in your mind and your heart still racing from the previous exchange. You catch Kotori staring at you a few times, and upon making eye contact, you both blush furiously and look back down at your food.

After your meal, you check the time, dismayed that it’s time for you to leave. You don’t have to walk too far to return home, but it’s far enough for you to need to leave now. Standing at the doorway, you sense a presence behind you.

Turning around, you see Kotori, her hands now in front of her, clasped together with her smile back on her face; however, rather than being earnest, it’s now shy, bashful. It’s a side to her you’ve always wanted to see more of, and now she’s displaying it right in front of you. It’s in that moment you realise you haven’t said a word to her since she confessed, and you try to find the right words. You think you have what it takes at this point.

“Kotori?” you ask hesitantly, your hand already on the doorknob to leave the house. She looks up expectantly, eyes wide.

You twist the doorknob and push open the door, the cool night air washing over you immediately. Stepping outside, Kotori races forward a little into the porch to listen to what you have to say. You smile softly, heart racing even faster than it was before, and say the same phrase to her that changed your life.

“I like you, too.”

~

_September 10 th, 2016_

Your trembling hands trace the outlines of the unfinished dress, eyes gazing emptily upon the project. It’s not often you so outwardly revisit memories of her – apart from the annual visit on her birthday and often visits on a fortnight basis aside from that, you’ve steered clear from her house, speaking to her mother occasionally on the phone but otherwise avoiding contact. However, after your conversation with Honoka yesterday, you felt it necessary to come here. The familiar smell of Ms Minami’s cooking fills the house; for a while, you smile, reminiscing on the times you used to go around here after school, but then you remember that she’s only cooking for one now.

She looks tired, dark circles under her eyes from restless nights, and you offered your most sincerest smile at the door, to which she responded, if only slightly. She offered you tea, to which you gratefully accepted, and the two of you then sat in silence for a few moments, sipping tea and listening to the rain pattering on the conservatory rooftop. She made a vague comment on the weather, to which you nodded, and the silence returned. You feel safe around her, though. She’s the final piece of the girl you love remaining on this earth – her hazel-brown eyes, the familiar, unique tuft of hair atop her head, all of it reminds you so much of Kotori you wonder how she can look herself in the mirror in the mornings without remembering, though something about her tells you she can’t.

After your tea, you thanked her and asked to go up to ‘her’ bedroom. You didn’t need to specify who. Blankly, she nodded, and you left, finding yourself in this position now. After exploring the room a little, you’d opened the wardrobe to find the unfinished dress shoved messily at the back, as if her mother was trying to repel it as far away as possible so she didn’t have to face the biggest project of her daughter’s life she left unfinished.

What has been completed is as beautiful as it looks on the design, an almost perfect replica of her delicate sketching. You run your fingers down the fabric, feeling the softness, imagining her own hands doing the same as she figures out where to sew next, what to do next, her mind going into that blissful mode of pure focus that you always loved to see. For a moment, a peaceful smile lingers on your face, your hand caught in a mechanism of moving up, down, feeling the different fabrics and your mind lost in the illusion of her still being there. That is, until the emptiness hits you, the quietness of the room coming like a slap to your face because she _isn’t_ there, her presence isn’t there to calm you, and you drop the dress to the floor as you begin to tremble uncontrollably.

You don’t want to cry. You don’t want to cry because you know her mother will hear. You’ve always tried to be strong, but it’s never worked – you tried to be strong for Honoka, and in the end, she’s the one who was strong enough to suggest moving on from her, despite knowing her longer. You tried to be strong each time you visited her in hospital, but in the end, you hardly got any moments alone with her, choosing to instead stick to Honoka’s side like you were afraid of being left alone as she faded away. Left alone to accept her fate, _your_ fate, the fate of your relationship.

So instead of crying, you pick up the dress and put it back where it’s meant to be, over the head of the mannequin in the corner of the room. You remember seeing her progress every time you visited, watching the dress grow from a strip of fabric to something only Kotori’s expertise could create; you’d envy her ability to do something so well, something she enjoyed – of course, you did archery, but you could never have loved archery as much as she loved sewing, designing, creating. Watching her work used to be the highlight of your week, if you ever got to see her in progress; she was a little bashful about people seeing her in her focus zone, but she eventually trusted you enough to let you watch her. One of the proudest moments of your life, the day she opened up and worked on the actual project with you, your presence blending into the atmosphere of the room and not reducing her focus.

You think about what Honoka said the previous day.

_“You may think it’s the only way you can feel close to her, or the only way you can find closure, but it’s not. Every time you visit the memory gets clearer and it comes back to you all at once and it hurts you, Umi, can’t you see that?!”_

Closure. The word is one you’re rather familiar with, particularly from therapy after the incident, the word thrown around by your family in hushed whispers behind your back when they think you can’t hear them. Everyone wants you to find closure, to move on from what happened and be the girl you used to be. The girl who was organised and adept at socialising, the girl who took her studies seriously and did archery every day, the girl who made her parents proud with her intelligence and skills. You were like an ornament for them to parade around and show off, something they could put on display to make themselves look good; whether you’d won an award for your poetry, or an archery competition or anything, they would take your victory and use it to make the Sonoda name glow, always forgetting to congratulate their daughter on her victory, or tell her she’s beautiful and intelligent, the words she always needed to hear.

You don’t remember ever being complimented until Kotori spoke to you. You remember the first day the two of you met. You were on the playground outside your play-group, alone in the sand-pit as usual, when a small, chubby, ginger-haired girl covered in dirt appeared from behind a tree, spotting you and calling out. In fear, you backed away from the sand-pit, holding your spade protectively to your chest as another, cleaner girl appeared behind the first one.

 _“It’s okay! We just want to be friends!”_ the ginger-haired girl called out, waving with a wide, toothless grin on her face, her loud voice cutting through the air like a knife and making you flinch. The girl behind her giggled as they approached you.

_“What’s your name?”_

_“U-Umi…”_ You paused, thinking of whether or not it was appropriate to state your full name. _“Umi…Sonoda.”_

_“Nice to meet you, Umi! I’m Honoka, and this is Kotori!”_

It was then you finally took in the girl behind her, an angelic child, dazzling eyes and a round face, plump cheeks and a beautiful smile. She offered a tiny wave, then looked at you properly. _“Woah! I like your hair!”_

You were taken aback. The first time anyone had ever said something of the sort to you, a _compliment_ , and you were ecstatic. You ran your fingers through the hair you’d always seen as straggly and weird-looking, yet in that moment it suddenly looked glossy and shiny, the way you’d always wanted it to look. _“R-Really?”_

Kotori nodded. _“Yup, it’s so beautiful! And long, and silky, and smooth! I wish I had hair like yours!”_

You were quick to snap to defence. _“But your hair is pretty as well! And your eyes, and… and everything!”_

She giggled again, the contagious giggle as Honoka grinned cheekily.

 _“Let’s all be best friends from now on!”_ Honoka then announced, grabbing a stick from the ground and kneeling down. _“Here, this will mark our friendship…”_

She began to carve into the ground, and it wasn’t until she moved back to admire her work that you saw what she had written. _Kotori + Honoka + Umi = Best Friends Forever and Ever and Ever and_ – Kotori had clearly stopped her before she wrote too many ‘ever’s’, or because their parents were approaching to pick them up. When Kotori’s mother saw the mark on the ground, she smiled brightly and took her camera out for a picture. Honoka stood centre-ground, waving her arms frantically with the same grin on her face. Kotori posed cutely beside her own name, beaming like a ray of sunshine, and you sat awkwardly politely at the other side, not really knowing what to do with your face or your hands, deciding to neatly place your hands in your lap and attempt to smile. The photo was printed a few days later and Kotori pinned it to her bedroom wall.

Your eyes trail over there now, to the bulletin board where she’s pinned all her memories. You find the picture in the middle and smile reminiscently, admiring all the other photographs – you see the light in her eyes in each one, how _alive_ she looks, how beautiful she is, how light radiates off her like she’s the sun. From the photograph of her crossing the finish line at her athletics tournament (you’d never expect her to be into athletics, but she had always been quick on her feet) to pictures of her at her birthday parties, standing with the huge, bright beam on her face that you felt could melt your face if you stared too long. She was more beautiful to you than a sky full of stars, the way her balcony looked when the crescent moon shone a silvery glow onto it – instead of looking at the sky, you’d look at her, the way the light reflected off her and made her eyes twinkle with the light, illuminating her. At the start, you remember she’d always look alive in that light. Like nothing could ever bring her down from where she was, like she held the hopes and dreams of every human in her dusty pink cheeks and sparkling eyes.

You’ve always loved writing, and language in general; your grades in Japanese and English back in high school prove that point fairly well. From little haikus at the bottom of your page in particularly boring lessons to short stories submitted for local competitions or that one full-length novel draft lying in your files somewhere on the little laptop you took everywhere with you, you’ve always loved pouring your emotions and feelings out onto a blank page, the white and the blinking cursor soon being occupied by thoughts, in whichever way you chose to represent them. Meanings could be hidden so deeply between the lines it’s difficult to tell how you felt writing it when you look back on it; alternatively, pieces could be like diary entries, the meanings and the emotions so clearly understandable if the reader knew you well enough.

You haven’t dared open your diary since that day. Stored away in a well-hidden folder in your documents, it’s remained unopened for over a year. You know your most precious, intimate memories lie within that diary, quite possibly your finest, most genuine masterpiece yet, but so personal you cannot bear for any of it to possibly be seen by another. Except her. Sometimes you would show her snippets from your diary, if you were having a particularly bad day and had no other way to express your feelings to her. You were so comfortable around her, you could leave the diary open on your desk, leave the room and come back to see it untouched, and not even be surprised. She was always respectful, never invasive, and yet when you asked if she could keep a secret, her eyes would grow wide with curiosity and she would nod. And she always kept her promises, and never told a soul about even your darkest secrets.

After a while, you remember growing lazy with your diary-writing; after all, you had what appeared to be a human diary to vent to. Diaries didn’t talk, and nor did she, at least until you were done telling her what you needed to say – she’d study you closely to see if you were in the mood to be responded to, and if so, she’d slowly and cautiously offer you her advice. She knew exactly how to handle you, mood swings and all, and yet you felt so disconnected from her. You forgot she had emotions. The time when you neglected her feelings is the time you regret the most, the moment you wish you could return to more than anything. The time when she was about to fall apart but you never even noticed, too caught up in your own selfish needs to bother to look in her direction even once, to look past the sunny look in her eyes and find the sadness beneath.

You remember when she told you. You remember the way your heart stopped, the way everything went cold and you were suddenly breathing in short, rapid bursts and then your knees and legs gave way and you were on the ground and she was calling your name and _stupid, stupid, why are you the one crying?_ Why did you cry when it was so obviously her who was the most entitled to, why did you clutch your heart and feel the sudden thumping and she was the one standing above you trying to shake you back?

Why did she tell you?

Why did it happen?

If you had just stayed blind to it, maybe it wouldn’t have. You know the logic is useless – nothing could have stopped it. Nothing could have saved her. And yet, every time you walk up that gravel path, past the eerie black gates and stand face-to-face to the stone, you can only blame yourself. The way you reacted, how you collapsed, how when she told Honoka, all the ginger-haired girl could do was stare down at the table, blue eyes wide and breaths laboured. Honoka didn’t collapse. Honoka wasn’t selfish. Honoka wasn’t afraid to look her in the eye, Honoka never cried. Honoka never cried. _Honoka never cried_.

But you did. You cried until you couldn’t anymore, your eyes red and sore from the strain of the tears, your face trapped in a constant expression of upset. You cried so much in the first week your mother practically dragged you to therapy, in fear that you’d never recover, never stop crying.

Eventually, it did stop – but then it got worse.

Now that you had stopped crying, your emotions began to boil up with no way of release. You’d stare emptily at a wall for hours, hugging the alpaca plushie Kotori sewed for you on your last birthday tight to your chest and willing yourself to move a single muscle. Yet it took hours, sometimes even days before you could peel off the baggy, grey, stained hoodie you’d been wearing for days and wash the smudged mascara off your face and comb through your long, tangled mane of hair and eat something more substantial than crisps or small snacks of sandwiches or chocolate or any kind of comfort food. Both your parents were occupied with work, leaving you to your own devices all day, yet you never moved from your bed. You’d receive texts from school friends, offering their support, expressing their condolences for the girl the whole school knew as a ray of sunshine. You heard from Honoka sometime later, when you could stomach hearing news about what happened in the world while you were sat around feeling sorry for yourself, that groups of girls had been crying on the day after it happened and even the delinquents in class were oddly quiet. Flowers and notes were piling up on her desk, signs being placed all over school and even a Facebook page dedicated to her.

Everyone cared so much. Of course, it had always been common knowledge that she was a bright, bubbly student, both dedicated to her studies, other aspects of school life and her social life. Always heavily involved in charity events, she was the most good-hearted, angelic girl you’d ever meet, and the closer you got to her, the more radiant she seemed. To everyone else, she had no flaws – she was the pinnacle of perfection, the epitome of a role model student and what every girl in Otonokizaka aspired to be.

To you, though, she was more than that. She had flaws – she was so perfectly imperfect you had a hard time comprehending how she was even human. You could never figure out how such a flawed person could be so beautiful, and yet you felt you didn’t need an explanation. She was just _her_ , as she was, a kind, beautiful, imperfect soul you could never forget. No matter what happened.

 _No matter what happened_. But something did happen. Something changed; no, not just _something_ , everything changed. And maybe it was in the final few months, before everything spiralled out of control and you lost the only thing keeping you stable, that you realised just how flawed everyone was.

You. Honoka.

_Kotori._

~

_September 11 th, 2012_

“Here!”

Honoka stands before you, her hands clasping a crinkled blue bag, eyes sparkling with pride and a wide grin spread from ear to ear. You look up from where you’re busy stirring the mixture in the bowl with a wooden spoon, only to state, in a deadpan voice, “Honoka, that’s sugar.”

“Whaaa? But the bag was blue…” Honoka peers at the front of the bag, only to deflate slightly as she accepts defeat.

“I said the blue bag of _flour_. Sugar comes later, when the mixture’s actually formed past what it currently is.” You point accusingly at the actual cake bowl, empty. Whilst Honoka had been occupying herself with trying to find the correct ingredients, you’d been working on the icing, which was almost done by the time she’d presented you with the incorrect bag.

“Well, if _you’re_ so good at baking cakes, why don’t you get the ingredients?” Honoka pouts, and you roll your eyes, sighing.

“You were practically begging on your knees to help me out. Besides, Kotori likes it when we put in a team effort for her birthday.”

Honoka looks like she’s about to sulk, but before she can manage, she takes a deep inhale and her eyes look like they’re about to burst open. _“Bread?!”_ she exclaims, crouching down and opening the oven door to peer at the rising bread inside. “Umi, you didn’t tell me you were making bread!”

“You never noticed the smell until now?”

“I have a blocked nose!” she whines, before silencing herself and taking more inhales from the oven.

“Close the oven door, Honoka. And wipe that sugar from your nose.”

Honoka scrubs furiously at her nose while you resist the urge to laugh. It’s a tradition for the two of you to meet up the day before Kotori’s birthday and bake her a cake. Honoka’s mother always offers to help out, since she runs Homura’s Bakery and is pretty good at handling baked goods, but you always politely refuse. It makes it just that little bit more special if the cake itself is baked just by you and Honoka. Of course, Mrs Kousaka always helps out in other ways by making little steamed buns and treats for Kotori, which she places neatly in a little basket and lets Honoka carry on her arm all the way to Kotori’s.

It’s become a special time for the two of you. You realise, with what’s happened with Kotori recently, Honoka has become your closest friend – at least, the closest friend with whom you have a platonic relationship with. She’s the person you would talk to if you needed advice about Kotori, and yet you aren’t entirely sure she would be able to offer a decent answer. Honoka’s never had much experience with relationships, and she doesn’t seem to mind it that way – as long as she has her bread, her friends and Otonokizaka, she’s satisfied.

Honoka brings the flour as requested, and the two of you finally start on the mixture. Stirring, complaining about flour getting all over your arms and covering your apron, laughing, blowing flour off the table at one another – it’s just like every September 11th you’ve spent together. At one point, Kotori texts you asking how much of a mess Honoka has made already, and you simply respond with ‘Just as much as you’d expect her to’. You’ve found yourself always seeming to smile down at your phone when you’re texting Kotori now, and you know that seeing her at school will be even better – though, you really don’t want to look like a lovesick fool in front of your classmates, who have the image of you being the next school council president, of being mature and sensible. You wouldn’t exactly be a role model if you were blushing over Kotori every hour of every day, but it’s so difficult to resist.

You place your phone down on the counter, feeling slightly selfish for leaving Honoka to her own devices to text Kotori. The ginger-haired nuisance herself appears to be crouching down on the floor and attempting to watch the bread to see if she could notice it rising; after you tell her that watched bread never rises (a phrase you never thought you’d say in your life), she closes the oven door and busies herself tidying up the used ingredients.

The rest of the afternoon passes, the two of you working hard to decorate the cake. Honoka may be clumsy, but the way she so carefully writes out ‘Happy Birthday Kotori’ with icing sugar on top of the cake, tongue poking out from her lips and brows furrowed in concentration, is certainly admirable. Even if she miscalculates how big ‘birthday’ will be and ends up making the ‘a’ and ‘y’ tiny, her work in the end isn’t half bad. The pastel pink icing looks oddly good on the pastel blue coating on top of the cake, and after coating the entire thing in sugar, it looks pretty good. You cover up the cake and wash your hands, Honoka following your every move as you tidy up the kitchen and finally gaze upon your creation.

The cake is exactly how you pictured it to be. As you stare at it, an assortment of pastel colours and marzipan patterns reminds you so much of the girl the cake is for that you need to take a moment to reflect on how you managed to create this, from the simple idea of a pastel-themed cake. You’ve never prided yourself on your baking ability, or your artistic skills outside of writing and poetry, but you feel like both you and Honoka did a good job on this. After taking a quick picture on your phone of the cake, you cover it with a cream-coloured towel again and leave it to be.

Honoka bids you farewell and runs back home to help her mother make some more baked goods for Kotori’s special day, and you rush up to your bedroom, clasping your phone in your hand. Once in the safety of your own room, you immediately fumble to open up your text conversation with Kotori, sending her a quick message to tell her the cake has been finished. She responds with a gleeful ‘yay’, and informs you that she’ll be having an early shower and sleep tonight.

You can’t help the rush of disappointment coursing through your veins when she says this. You’ve been waiting the whole day until you and Honoka finished the cake to finally be able to settle down and message your… your what? Girlfriend? The term makes you blush, and you almost instantaneously forget what you were just worrying about. Is Kotori your girlfriend? Lover? Significant other? You wonder if there’s a true term for something like what the two of you have; the word _girlfriend_ sounds so common, so shallow, that it almost doesn’t feel right to refer to her as that.

Maybe the word has lost its meaning over the years. Before, the idea of a girlfriend or boyfriend was true love, two people dedicated to one another in both heart and soul, and yet as you’ve become exposed to the true world of teenagers, not just the sensible, mature girls of Otonokizaka, you’ve found that a ‘girlfriend’ is more of a shallow term for a girl perched on a boy’s lap as he smokes cigarettes and hardly acknowledges her. You’ve only ever been to one of the parties in the neighbouring town (a more problematic town, home to one of the worst-rated public schools in the country) but the single time was enough. You finally saw what really happened outside of the world you knew. You remember being there, feeling lost in the crowd, Honoka having not been invited (she was ill for a week and missed the invitations) and Kotori not being able to make it. You had begun to make up an excuse about how you couldn’t go, but a girl from your class, Misaki, practically dragged you along, and you’ll never forget the things you saw that night.

Yes, you’ve seen other definitions of love, but you’ve never known the true one. You remember wanting to ask your mother, trying to work up the courage over a fortnight, but ended up never questioning. The entire Sonoda family is known to have a prudish nature, and avoid subjects such as love, relationships and sex in any way they possibly can, despite your obvious curiosity growing up. Any questions you had about anything of the kind, from dirty jokes told by the ‘mature’ kids in the school playground to any sort of reference to puberty, you were immediately shot down, told that it’s ‘shameless’, the phrase so well known to you now.

You place your phone gently down on the desk after wishing Kotori a good night, occupying yourself with some homework and then reading for the rest of the evening. Your parents work late, so you prepare your own dinner, taking time to admire the freshly made cake sitting prettily atop the kitchen counter, Honoka’s wonky calligraphy adorning the top and your own marzipan decorations adding the quirkiness to the cake, making the entire thing radiate _Kotori_. You don’t know how to describe the atmosphere around the girl other than angelic, addictive, _intoxicating_.

Deciding not to bother with banishing the shameless thoughts, you sit down for dinner. The rest of the evening passes with a strange emptiness in your heart at the departure of the other girl, and you find yourself beginning to type messages to her before stopping yourself. It’s her birthday tomorrow. You’ll have the chance to talk to her and hug her and kiss her- _wait_.

Honoka doesn’t know yet.

You realise, suddenly, how much of an effect the change in relationship between you and Kotori will affect your best friend. Honoka is air-headed, but not stupid – she’ll certainly notice if you leave it too long, and you don’t want her to be upset because you never told her. She deserves to know. Just the idea of Honoka being left behind, watching the two of you move on without her, threatens to bring a tear to your eye and you blink it away furiously.

You decide that you’ll bring it up to Kotori after the party tomorrow. Until then, you sit back, feeling deflated at how you’ll only be able to show limited affection to Kotori at the party when all you really want to do is give her the birthday kiss she deserves. Your lips still tingle from the kiss a few days earlier, your thoughts still travel to that memory when you leave them unattended, and your face still flares up at the thought of how… _forward_ you were. You never expected yourself to lean in for a kiss, or so blatantly confess to somebody, and yet it seemed so natural in the moment. Like it was what the universe wanted you to do.

You resist the urge to roll your eyes at yourself, since you’ve never quite believed in all that spiritual stuff (is what you tell yourself, though you have a tendency to check your daily horoscope every morning when you wake up _and_ Google the love compatibility between Pisces and Virgo, though you’d never admit that in a million years) and you lie back, flicking the light-switch off as you bid your day farewell. You imagine Kotori, asleep and dreaming – what does she dream about? You ponder on it for a while, imagining that her dreams are mostly filled with cute fluffy things, then catch yourself before you imagine too deeply. You don’t want to be creepy, but perhaps it’s just the overwhelming need to _understand_ Kotori which overcomes you on occasion. The burning curiosity as to how her brain works, what’s going on inside her mind all the time, what she’s doing at any given moment when the two of you are apart. Since the two of you confessed, you’ve not had as much shame in thinking so often about her, so your thoughts often end up solely focusing on her.

You wonder if you could call it love. You’ve always thought you loved her the same way you loved Honoka, as a best friend, as someone important to you who you will always cherish. You suppose it’s the same now, just with romantic feelings added to the mix. But there’s undoubtedly a difference between the way you feel talking to Kotori, the way your heart flutters and you stutter on your words and your cheeks heat up, compared to the natural, comfortable way in which you talk to Honoka.

Bringing a hand up to your cheek, you stare at the white ceiling, your burning cheek being the only heat in the room, and close your eyes gently, imagining a future with the girl you love until you drift into the realm of unconsciousness.

~

_September 12 th, 2016_

You wake up early with a start that day, the foggy grey six a.m. weather visible from where you lie, the fading light breaking through the curtains and shining a small glow onto the carpet of your dormitory. The early birds sing soft, quiet melodies atop a tree branch outside, calling out to one another, waking up the college students for their morning classes. Sitting up, your vision takes a while to adjust before you’re staring at the white wall opposite with your back aching and your heart feeling slightly heavy, deprived. You feel your shirt clinging to your body, before realising you’d been sweating profusely before awakening. _A nightmare?_

It’s not uncommon for you to get nightmares this time of year. After all, it is the time of year you dread the most, the time which brings memories from the very back of your mind to the front, when thoughts of _her_ occupy your mind all day, but not in the way it used to. Never in the way it used to.

Groggily rubbing your eyes, you lean forward to rest your head on your knees, black-blue hair spilling in front of your face, fringe scratching at your eye. The first birthday without her, you woke up with tears in your eyes, but now you feel as if the energy has been drained from you, despite having slept for a full eight hours. Your legs feel heavy, and you’re vaguely aware of the beating of your heart. The first comprehensible thought that comes to mind is that you need a shower, and you get up, carrying out your usual morning routine in robotic movements, grabbing your towel, your clothes for the day and your makeup bag and heading to the bathroom. The sound of water splashing against the tiled floor rings in your mind, and a girl stands in front of the mirror brushing her teeth. Everything looks so normal, and yet it’s as if someone’s put a black and white filter over your vision and then blurred it slightly.

You shower, standing still under the shower-head and letting the water make your hair turn dense and heavy. You make a half-hearted effort to wash yourself and then dry yourself off, slipping on a dressing-gown and tying the fabric at the front before heading to the sink to brush your teeth, staring blankly into your reflection and seeing the dull brown eyes stare back, unmoving, hazy, glazed over with some sort of protective layer so you cannot see what it holds.

It’s only when a girl starts speaking to you that you come to your senses. She asks a vague question about the notes in class, and you answer, somehow. You forget what you’ve said as soon as the words escape your lips, and she hums and nods before setting down her makeup bag on the counter and beginning to apply foundation to her already-flawless skin. You drag your eyes away and rinse the toothpaste from your mouth. The girl speaks to you as you both do your makeup – she complains about the weather, she complains about her professors being unfair, it seems like she’s complaining about everything and you just want to scream at her to _stop it_. Her negativity is like an infectious disease, crawling its way under your skin, into your bloodstream, attacking you directly until you succumb. The atmosphere feels dark, and the girl leaves without letting you respond.

After you’ve done your makeup and look a little more like a human being, you escape back to your room quickly, stripping yourself of the mint green dressing gown and replacing it with clothing. You only get your underwear on before your legs feel like they’re about to give way and you lie back down on your bed, the cool air hitting your skin and your vision fading in and out. Perhaps it isn’t a good idea to go to class like this. It’s the first time you’ve even attempted to go to class on September the twelfth, and it’s already a failure. You think back to what Honoka said at the diner that gloomy day. About moving on, and how she called you selfish… the way her eyes filled with rage as she told you that she loved her too. You feel like a fool for not realising – so caught up in your own emotions, you let Honoka trail behind and suffer, made yourself seem the most important when she was damaged too.

Your hand accidentally falls atop your stomach with a clapping noise, and you jolt a little at the feeling of bones through the skin. Have you really lost so much weight? You look down and see the outline of ribs through pasty white skin, and you shiver – you don’t think it’s just the cold this time. It’s true. You have lost weight. You don’t remember the last time you ate breakfast, and your lunches and dinners were usually smaller portions than usual. How long ago was your last fully-cooked meal? As much as you try to think, you can never find an answer.

You give up on the idea of going to class when the clock hits seven and you’re still lying half-naked on your bed. Sighing in defeat, you turn over and face the wall. Usually Honoka would text you at around ten o’clock to say when she wanted to meet up, but you have a feeling that won’t be happening today. Unless…

Your phone lies forgotten on the desk, the alarm for class displayed on the front. You cancel the alarm and unlock your phone, finding your text messages with Honoka. The conversation ended after that day at the diner, and you try to find the words to type, typing and backspacing until you give up and decide to text her later. In the meantime, you check your daily horoscope, put your night-clothes back on, send an apologetic email to your professor and drift back into unconsciousness.

 

You wake up to a vibration from beside you. Turning over in confusion, you see your phone lit up with an incoming call. Honoka’s cheerful face is displayed on the front, a picture of her from high school, one of the fondest memories you have of her – she has a flower over her mouth and is cross-eyed, her eyes wide and goofy, with the sun shining on her ginger hair and making her sparkle. You swipe to accept the call and put her on speaker so you can lie on your side with your phone on the bed. It’s silent for a few seconds.

“Umi?”

Her voice sounds tentative, hesitant, and you nod before realising Honoka can’t see you. “Yes?”

“Are you in your dorm room?”

“…I am.”

Honoka exhales. “You skipped class?”

“Yes.”

“Then, do you want to come and meet me at the… at the diner, at twelve?”

You check the time – it’s ten thirty.

“Okay.”

“G-Great, then.” Honoka still sounds anxious, as if the phone’s going to explode in her face at any moment. “I’ll be waiting there.”

“I’ll see you there then… Honoka.”

She hangs up, and you lie on your back, your heart heavy. After a few minutes of lying there, you muster up the strength to get up and begin to peel off the night-dress and make yourself more presentable.

 

The diner isn’t too crowded, considering it’s twelve o’clock. You expect an abundance of students will be arriving at around half past or one, so you pray Honoka doesn’t make you stay long. You see her, dressed in a baggy grey hoodie and black leggings, makeup-less, her hair in its signature style but looking relatively greasy and unwashed. You walk over and take a seat in front of her, remembering how you sat in these exact places when she yelled at you.

“Umi.” Honoka looks, surprisingly, relieved when she sees you. She clasps a cup of hot chocolate around her hand, and you see she’s ordered one for you as well, which she pushes towards where you sit. You take a sip. It’s cooled down a little already, and you can drink it straight away.

“How are you?” you ask politely, and Honoka shrugs, avoiding eye contact.

“I had class early. And then Tsu- I, uh, a friend called me and I had to meet with them and then I was gonna come here for lunch so I decided to invite you.”

A suspicious feeling settles over you at the name Honoka stumbles over. Even with that one syllable, you know who she’s talking about – Tsubasa. You don’t know much about her, and you’ve never spoken to her directly, only seen Honoka clinging onto her arm while the other girl maintained a cool expression and even looked a little smug with a ditzy girl attached to her arm.

“Alright.” You take a sip of your hot chocolate. “This is nice. Have they changed their recipe?”

Honoka shrugs again. You sit in silence and drink for a while, and when you’ve both drained your cups, Honoka orders a sandwich. You remember you never ate breakfast, and order some fries. The waitress takes your empty cups and heads off to get your food, leaving you and Honoka in silence with nothing to do to distract yourselves from the elephant in the room, the pressing matter which neither of you wish to address.

That is, until you both decide to speak at the same time.

“Umi-”

“Honoka-”

You both stop abruptly. “Y-You go first,” Honoka stumbles shyly, looking a little flustered. You shake your head.

“You can speak.”

Honoka nods slowly and makes eye contact with you for the first time. “After we eat, shall we go and visit her? I-I’m… really sorry about what I said, the other day. I was just angry and things had been piling up and… and you know when everything gets so crazy really quickly and you can’t control your emotions and suddenly you keep having mood swings and pushing everyone away and-”

“It’s fine, Honoka. Calm down.” You nod. “I’ll visit her with you, and I’ll accept your apology, so don’t worry about it, okay? I… I also understand what you mean.”

Honoka widens her eyes. It’s not often her ramblings are understood by others. A small smile spreads over her face and she nods, the closest expression to a beam you’ve seen from her in years showing on her face. The waitress brings your food and you eat, beginning to chat about classes and university life. Honoka even laughs a few times. You wonder if getting that off her chest relieved a lot of stress – she must have been bottling up for a long time, and it had all released in that moment. You’re still wary of this Tsubasa girl, but you decide to question it later. For now, you make the most of Honoka’s smiling face and the feeling of hanging out with a familiar friend, one you’ve been close to for a long time, and been through so much with.

After your meal, you take a bus to Otonokizaka – college isn’t too far from your hometown, so it only takes around ten minutes to get into town by bus. The familiarity and sentiment of the town hits you like a ton of bricks when you arrive, as it usually does every time you take this bus trip. Even though you were here just a couple of days ago to visit the Minami house, you still feel the same heavyweight feeling on your chest, and by the way Honoka reaches over and squeezes your hand tightly, you suppose she feels the same way.

The graveyard is empty, bar the worker sweeping up leaves from where they’ve fallen, evidence of autumn’s beginning. Honoka hasn’t let go of your hand since you got off the bus, and you don’t mind. You feel a sense of support as the dreading feeling creeps up on you – the feeling of having to acknowledge something that’s happened, something you don’t want to admit happened, and yet here it’s so blindly obvious, right in front of you, engraved on a stone.

 _Kotori Minami_.

Even the name alone threatens to bring tears to your eyes. Honoka sits cross-legged in front of the gravestone. It’s the usual protocol. She sits first, and chatters away to the stone about various goings-on in her life. You sit out, not trying to listen in on her conversation, even though you can hear it plainly. You know how much privacy matters in these situations. You tap your foot anxiously against the ground as you perch atop the graveyard bench, staring out ahead at the array of graves and names, names holding so much meaning, names to symbolise _people_ , with family, friends, loved ones, a job, a home, a life. You try not to think about these things too much, but it’s so odd, the concept of each of the souls buried underneath these stones holds a history. What is now ashes used to be humans, walking and living and breathing, with emotions, with daily routines, who were born, grew up, had a childhood, made friends, had first experiences. Yet now, they’re memories. It’s always been an abstract concept to you, the concept of living and death, or what happens after death.

Before you have time to delve too deeply into your thoughts, Honoka is standing in front of you. Her eyes are dry, and she looks as if she’s been relieved of some tension. The first time you visited, she had tears streaming down her face rapidly and was hyperventilating – you smile softly at the way Honoka’s changed. She looks so much more mature; she’s definitely aged.

“Are you finished?” you ask, and she nods. You stand up, taking your cue to head over to the stone that’s caused you so much pain over the years, whilst Honoka sits on the bench and shuffles her feet.

You sit, not cross-legged like Honoka, but with your legs in front and your knees brought up to your chin. You spend a small amount of time just looking. Kotori’s favourite flowers – lilies – surround the area, with some roses dotted around here and there. You remember when Kotori told you one of her biggest wishes – to try a flower-bath. You remember giggling and, when a very flustered Kotori asked you why you found it funny, you told her she was adorable and made her blush even further. That night, you asked your parents if they knew anywhere which did flower-baths, and your mother recommended a spa which had a flower theme to it. You booked the pricey weekend trip and took Kotori with you. It was one of the most relaxing, and romantic, weekends of your life, and you’ll never regret spending all that money to be able to treat the girl you loved to something she dreamed of, as amusing as you found it.

After a while of thinking, you decide to speak.

“Kotori.” You rarely say her name so blatantly, so out-loud that you are forced to hear it spoken; even thinking her name brings the heaviness back to your heart, but when you sit in front of her grave, everything feels light. The stone is surrounded by her aura, her peacefulness. When you inhale, you can almost imagine you’re with her again.

“I’ve been studying a lot lately.” Your voice is hesitant, as if you’re afraid that maybe the ashes beneath the ground can hear your words, can understand you, and you choose them carefully, articulating each syllable slowly. “And thinking. But mostly studying.” A flower twitches in the wind, as if her spirit is trying to communicate, urging you to continue.

“I guess nothing much has changed since last time. My professors are a little strict sometimes, but I know they just care about my grades. I still don’t really know what sort of career I want. Maybe… an office job. Anything that will pay the bills. I’ll keep writing on the side, though. You always used to bug me about that.” You smile faintly as you recall the way the girl would assure you that your writing was good enough to get you published and profited. “I wish I had a more direct approach to life. You always knew what you wanted. You wanted to study overseas in fashion design, and become a professional costume designer. You could do it, as well. If you wanted to do anything in the whole world you could do it, just because that’s the kind of person you are.”

You’re met with silence. You didn’t expect anything different.

“Honoka says I shouldn’t see you for a while. Well, not see you. I can only see you in the photographs I have of you. I still have some on my phone, and I’ve got polaroids hanging up on a string in my room back home. I wish I could have taken more than just a handful of them here, but I guess I want something to return to. Life at home isn’t too good. My father is stressed over work, my mother is generally unhappy, and both of them are placing pressure on me. But it’s okay. I’m okay, I mean. I have Honoka, and… and I have my studies. I have things to do. Most of the time. But sometimes I…”

You look behind you quickly and see that Honoka is staring blankly at the ground. You wonder if she’s listening, then turn back.

“Sometimes I don’t have anything to do. Everything feels kind of empty and sad and barren and nothing happens and I just lie there all day. I never turn on the light, one of my dorm mates has to realise that I haven’t left my room and bring me food, and I can’t feel anything because I’m numb. The numb days are the worst. Worse than the angry days or the depressed days, because there’s _nothing_. It scares me more than it should.”

You feel your negativity begin to hold you down, so you try and brighten the atmosphere around you, though it’s difficult when you’re sitting in front of your girlfriend’s grave.

“I want to make my future brighter. I want to make more friends and go out more often and be social, but I don’t know where to start. I don’t ever want to forget you, and I think that’s what scares me the most. The chance of forgetting. I don’t want to forget your smile, your soft hair, or the way your cheeks dimpled when you laughed and your eyes sparkled when you talked about sewing. I don’t want to forget all the nights we spent on the rooftop, counting the stars and living out our days together in blissful harmony. I don’t want to forget any of these cherished memories, and I guess that’s why I’ve never let go of them.”

As you speak, you see a flutter in the corner of your vision as a grey bird flaps its wings to a stop, landing atop the grave in front of you. You stare into the bird’s eyes, spotting a sense of familiarity within them. Pain wrenches at your heart as if it’s trying to squeeze every last drop of emotion from the weakened strings, and you tear your gaze away from the bird, your voice beginning to crack. You speak, the bird listening eagerly.

“But as I speak now, I realise. I’m not going to forget. I can’t possibly forget your face, not when I have photographs all in a little album kept protected in my room. I can’t forget the sound of your voice when I have countless recordings on that little toy we used to use to record ourselves as kids, or videos of you on my phone. I can hear your laugh, I can see your smile, and your memory lives on within me every day. I do not need to sit in front of cold stone to be with you in spirit. I suppose I’ve never truly realised that until now.”

Upon reaching this epiphany, you feel as though your heart has stopped, the sound of blood flowing through your veins throbbing in your ears and filling you with a sense of determination.

“I’ve wanted closure for a long time. There was a mark you left on the world, Kotori Minami, and you left so many things unfinished it was unbearable to visit your home again. The dress was unfinished. Countless sewing projects in development haven’t been completed. So many sketches are still works in progress, yet overflowing with potential. I know you wanted to make a bigger mark on the fashion industry, but what lies in your room could be the key to success. I’m not going to exploit you and sell all your designs for my own selfish purposes. I have other ideas in mind. All it will take is me, Honoka, sewing materials and a lot of determination.”

The bird chirrups, and you feel realisation dawn on you as you speak, the ideas flowing out of your mouth before you have time to process them. Overcome by the idea, you stumble to your feet, stuttering out a few parting words – less to the stone, but to the bird, which observes you knowingly.

“I… I have to go. I need to do this right now. I-I don’t know when I’ll be here again, but… it doesn’t matter. You’ll always be with me, and I’ll always be with you. I… I love you, Kotori.”

And with that, you hurry back to Honoka, and immediately begin to talk.

~

_September 12 th, 2012_

The cake is a success. Kotori squeals in delight when Honoka presents it to her proudly, and claps her hands together in admiration for the hard effort and determination.

“You both must have worked so hard,” she comments, setting the cake down on her kitchen table, and Honoka smiles sheepishly in response.

“Hardly as much effort as you put into your sewing projects, I’d imagine,” you say politely, finding it odd to be standing right in front of Kotori, mere days after the kissing incident, with an unknowing Honoka almost bouncing in excitement between the two of you.

“The amount of effort put in does not matter,” Kotori says, smiling at you; if she’s nervous, she shows no signs of it. “It’s the thought behind it. Honoka’s messy handwriting just adds charm to the cake, and… and the decorations, they really are very nice. But even if they weren’t nice, even if the cake was a complete mess, it’d still be the most amazing cake ever because _you_ two made it.”

You feel a surge of emotion at her words, and Honoka looks a little shocked at Kotori’s sudden outburst of friendship.

“I suppose there is a certain sentiment behind these things,” you grin.

“You called my handwriting messy!” Honoka wails.

Kotori giggles. “It’s very endearing. It’s such a cute aspect of you, Honoka.” She leans down and pecks Honoka on the forehead, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and embracing her. The slightest twinge of jealousy strikes at your heart, but you bat it away immediately – such thoughts are completely unjustified. You mentally swore never to get jealous of Honoka the night after the kiss, and yet you’ve just contradicted yourself. _Disgusting_.

The rest of Kotori’s birthday passes the same way it usually does. She retrieves a metallic knife from the drawer and slices the cake into separate pieces, and the three of you combined manage to scoff down three quarters before getting full – (of course, Honoka isn’t full, but you tug her away from the cake before she stuffs herself completely) – and head up to Kotori’s room. She’s never wanted anything extravagant for any of her birthdays; just her and her two best friends spending time together. Her birthdays are rarely ever centric on herself, except for when you all sing a birthday song for her and cheer, and of course, the cake. It’s just another prime example of her selflessness.

At one point, Honoka becomes sleepy. She’s managed to get away with eating another couple of slices of cake, and now lies motionless on Kotori’s bed, tucked under a duvet and pink blanket, a strangely soundless slumber for the girl who so often is the loudest snorer at a sleepover. She looks peaceful, eyes curved downwards and lips slightly parted as she inhales and exhales gently, breathing regulated and chest slowly moving up and down. Both yourself and Kotori flash one another a look of cherishment, the overwhelming need to protect the small ginger-haired girl lying before you. You push aside any feelings of jealousy you had earlier – jealousy is ugly, and you don’t want to associate the word with any of your beautiful childhood friends. Or, in Kotori’s case, girlfriend. The word still feels alien, both in your mind and on your tongue, though you haven’t dared to voice it yet.

You realise now that it’s just you and Kotori alone together, with a sleepy Honoka resting on the bed. There’s a silence for a few moments, until Kotori stands up.

“I want to show you something,” she says, smiling, and grabs her sketchbook. You watch in wonder as she flickers through various designs, all beautifully drawn, intricate designs inked across elegant dresses or winter scarfs or coats or jackets or skirts with petticoats underneath. Finally, she reaches the dress you saw a few days ago, and even though it’s the second time you’ve seen it you still feel blown away by its sheer beauty.

“I’ve been doing a lot of planning for this,” she says. You notice that the drawing has been improved – she must have shaded it to make it look more realistic, and there’s a list of materials and fabrics on the side. “I’ve calculated the total cost to make it, and it’s pretty high. But I’m determined to finish this. It’s my greatest design yet.” She places the sketchbook flat on the ground. “I wanted to go shopping with you this weekend to buy materials, but I made a decision.”

You look up at her in curiosity and she grins. “It’s gonna be a surprise.”

“The dress?”

She nods. “I don’t want to show it off until it’s close to completion or completed. Once it’s perfect, I want to show it to you by wearing it. T-Then…” She starts to blush and averts her gaze. “I was thinking I could make you a matching outfit by adjusting something I already have, and then… we could dance together.” She stammers out the last sentence in a mumbled voice.

“That sounds…” You gulp. There’s a lump in your throat. Of course, you want to grab her by the shoulders and tell her that yes, you love the idea and you want to dance with her and she’s beautiful and you love her, but you’ve never been good at verbally expressing emotions. “It sounds lovely. I look forward to it.”

She releases a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I was worried you’d find it stupid.”

You meet her gaze again, with an intense one of your own. “Why would I ever find it stupid? To be able to dance with such a beautiful girl in such a beautiful dress…” Your voice trails off. _You were too direct._ Goddamnit. _That’s shameless, Umi._

But Kotori blushes even further, beginning to fiddle with the bun on the side of her head. Your heart stops for a second, taken aback by the display of this entirely different side to her, the angelic innocence that threatens to make your heart explode altogether. Outside, you hear the faint sound of a bird’s sweet melody, cutting sharply through the hesitant silence between the two of you with a series of chirpy notes that seem to ring in your mind even after it finishes its song.

“Then I will start making plans for a matching outfit,” she says finally, smiling as if to confirm the plan more for herself than for you.

“Please don’t overwork yourself, Kotori,” you say, adamant to ensure she does not overwhelm herself with work like she has done occasionally in the past. Big projects mean a large amount of hours placed into it, and you assure her that she will take necessary breaks, even if they need to be a week or even a month long. She promises to you that she will.

Of course, it’s not the only promise she makes. She tells you she plans to finish this, and that she will be relentless in her endeavour to do it. She tells you it’s the most determined she’s ever been to complete a project, and that ever since she was a small child she’s dreamed of one day feeling like a princess in an elegant dress like this. Then she tells you she loves you and is thankful for your support, and leans into you for a chaste kiss before you leave. When you return home, you see that your lips are a little pinker than usual – evidently thanks to Kotori’s high-quality makeup collection – and you smile softly to yourself before collapsing into a calm slumber.

~

_September 13 th, 2016_

Tuesday; the day of dreary lessons, professors drawling out class material in monotonous lectures, miserable autumn weather, and yet your mind appears to be the only thing awake on campus. Your head spins with yesterday’s epiphany, and you feel trapped in the small college classroom filled with sleepy students and a dull professor. When he calls for the end of lesson, you follow your zombie-like classmates out of the room, a certain spring in your step.

After you spoke to Honoka yesterday, she’d been relatively shocked at the revelation you made, but promised to support you in any way possible. You’d walked home like always, side-by-side, but this time hand-in-hand as well. The warmth of her hand against yours against the autumn weather made you reminiscent of past times, better times. It reminded you that not everything from before The Incident had disappeared or been tainted, and that previous happiness was within a single grasp of your hand, if you attempted to find it.

Of course, nothing would ever be the same as it was when Kotori was around. That would be impossible, and you know that. But you know that the feeling of content could still be found again, retrieved like a dusty old memory book from the attic. So you would search, and you would not give into the occasional depressive episode. That was your promise and you swore to keep it. Now, you feel as if you have been rejuvenated – of course, you still feel the heavy feeling in your heart that tends to last roughly a week after you visit her, but you feel as though it’s almost bearable.

As soon as class ends, you dash out, much to the surprise of your fellow students who stare at you, the normally gloomy girl, the one who had lost her girlfriend in high school (the story had circulated around the college since many of the girls had also gone to Otonokizaka) and was always sitting with a vacant expression on her dull features. On your way out, you grab your phone to find a text from Honoka.

**Honoka**

_Are we meeting outside the Minami’s place?_

Exhaling with relief that Honoka brought it up first, you text back immediately.

**Umi**

_Yes. I just got out of class, so I’ll be there soon._

**Honoka**

_Okay :) Are you sure about it tho?_

With the slightest hint of a smile on your lips, you type back your response with no hesitation as the campus becomes crowded around you.

**Umi**

_Never been more certain in my life._


	2. when i tried pushing myself a little☆

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part 2 of 3.

_December 21 st, 2012_

A hand tightly clasps around yours as you reach the beginning of the most clustered area in town – the square, which contains the largest Christmas tree you’ve ever seen placed obnoxiously in the centre with flashing lights and tinsel wrapped around it and giant baubles hanging off artificial branches. You’ve never liked flashy decorations around this time of year, but the way the girl clinging onto your shoulder gasps in awe and withdraws her phone from her bag to snap a picture makes you see it in a slightly better light. Slightly.

You’re used to her randomly taking photographs of anything she finds pretty in her day-to-day life. She’s got the mind-set of an artist, after all, and anything that inspires her is something she needs to remember later. You understand as well, though in a different sense. Capturing precious moments with your friends on your old-fashioned yet sturdy camera is something you catch yourself doing far too many times, especially considering you’re a firm believer in living out joyous moments and not worrying about capturing it. But there’s something about the way Honoka’s face lights up when she opens her lunch-box to find fresh bread, or the way Kotori’s hair looks honey-golden in a particular angle at a particular sunlight, something in these little moments which you feel the overwhelming urge to capture. So, as she marvels at the Christmas tree and positions her phone to take the perfect shot, you take out your own, aim it at her and press down on the shutter.

She notices a little too late, and widens her eyes, lowering her own phone. Her surprise quickly turns to a knowing smile and she latches onto your arm again with a giggle. “Like what you see?” She nuzzles her head against your shoulder and closes her eyes with a content sigh, far too relaxed for the crowd she resides within.

“I was doing what you do all the time. I was taking a picture of something I find beautiful.” You feel a little forward stating this, but it sparks up the ever-so familiar blush across her cheeks and she laughs again, nervously.

“I’m really nothing that special, Umi,” she says in between laughter, and despite her joking tone, you sense the hint of truth behind her statement.

“You are,” you state indignantly, not knowing what else to say because the statement just seems so obvious. Kotori runs her hands through her hair and smiles almost wistfully at the ground, before detaching herself from your arm and managing to take the shot she missed of the tree.

The two of you shop for a while – Christmas presents for your families, sweets from Kotori’s favourite candy shop, a joint present for Honoka (a cute handbag covered in patterns of cute cartoon snacks, including bread) and materials for Kotori’s latest sewing projects. You know she’s still focused on her ‘big’ project, but she traditionally makes scarfs and hats and mittens around this year – you just hope it doesn’t distract from her main goal, especially since she’s so determined to finish it.

At one point your fingers intertwine with one another, and it feels so natural you don’t pay much heed until a middle-aged couple stare you down with cold, judgmental expressions, and people begin to look your way and give confused expressions. After a while, your hands naturally drift apart from one another and you continue shopping, feeling a slight emptiness in your heart from the reality of the world outside either of your houses, the places where you feel safe. Outside, people are far more likely to judge, and far more close-minded.

The day is productive, bringing you plenty of presents to wrap when you reach your house again. Both of your parents are out, so you spend the time leisurely wrapping presents and listening to music whilst engaging in occasional conversation. It’s the true Christmas spirit, with Mariah Carey booming out from the stereo and the sound of wrapping paper crinkling and the jingle of Kotori’s special Christmas bracelets and her gentle humming. You’ve never properly told her how good she is at singing, you think, as she begins to sing the second verse in her soft, angelic voice. It feels like last Christmas, only there are two major changes – Honoka isn’t here, having gone out with her family, and the relationship between yourself and Kotori is different.

Physically, it’s not all that different. You haven’t kissed all that much, and you hug as normal. Other than that, it’s mainly the way your hands seem to naturally link with one another, and that she always grabs onto your arm when she wants attention from you. You don’t mind; you find it adorable. It just makes you confused, at the fact that everything feels so _right_ yet so far away from a conventional romantic relationship. Couples are meant to kiss – that’s a thing you’ve always known, from the rare times your mother and father kissed one another and the times you saw teenagers in the park lean in and kiss. You wonder if Kotori silently wishes you would do that more – she isn’t always so forward with her emotions.

Aside from the physicality, there’s also the mentality. You’ve become a lot happier since confessing, yet also so much more confused. Your thoughts always drift to her, no matter what you’re doing, or how hard you’re trying to concentrate in class – it’s no use, if all that comes into mind is seeing her between classes and during breaks and walking home with her hand-in-hand. You find yourself imagining scenarios which are hardly likely to happen, considering both of your personalities, yet it still feels almost real in your mind. That isn’t to say that the reality isn’t bad – you find yourself occasionally making eye contact with her in lessons and seeing both your eyes and hers widen and the blushes which spread over your faces. Sometimes, when Honoka’s rambling on, you look at each other understandably and offer smiles towards one another, private, secret smiles which carry a million messages.

 _Honoka_. You wonder if your ditzy best friend has caught on yet – something about her hasn’t been right these past few weeks, and you remember making a mental note to ask Kotori if she’d noticed it to. You look across from you and see Kotori humming the chorus to ‘Last Christmas’, and you raise your voice.

“Do you think Honoka is okay?”

“Hmm?” Kotori places down the gift she’s wrapping and tilts her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“She’s been acting a little strange. She keeps running off, and disappearing for days, and she couldn’t even make it today.”

“She said she was with her family.”

“That doesn’t explain why she runs home from school and doesn’t text for hours, though. Or how she’s spacing out even more than usual lately. I’m just… concerned, I guess. I don’t want to neglect her.”

Kotori nods in agreement and turns down the music a little. “She has been a little strange lately. I asked her if she was feeling okay and she made an excuse about eating too much bread, but I’ve seen her eat far more without feeling anything. She’s always texting on her phone as well, but as far as I know, she doesn’t have any friends who she texts frequently. She prefers meeting people in person.”

You didn’t know about her texting. Furrowing your brows, you rest your chin on your palm. “That’s odd. Honoka hates texting.”

“Exactly. I was concerned as well, but I didn’t know whether to bring it up.”

You sit in silence for a while, slowly continuing to wrap gifts as the music plays quietly in the background. Your brain works hard to try and come up with a way to deal with the situation, before Kotori speaks.

“Let’s just let Christmas pass by without interfering. We can figure something out in the new year,” she suggests, and you nod.

“Okay.”

~

_December 22 nd, 2016_

You click on the replay button again, sighing as you hear the same cheerful introduction from the same tutorial video you’ve been watching repeatedly for an hour. The girl begins to walk through the process of what you’re attempting to do, but each time you attempt it, something goes wrong; in the end, you drop the needle to the ground in frustration, refusing to take the same risk with the delicate artificial flowers, which you place on the dressing table, slightly calmer this time. The door swings open and Ms Minami appears, smiling at the sight of you, kneeling on the ground with a mannequin before you and a look of defeat in your eyes.

“Having trouble, are we?” she asks with a slight giggle, reminding you so much of Kotori that you resist the emotions trying to claw at you.

“I know I wasn’t going to ask for help, but if it isn’t any trouble…”

“All you have to do is ask, Umi,” Ms Minami says, kneeling down next to you and evaluating the situation. “Are you trying to stitch these flowers onto the dress? Ah, I did something like that for the flower girl at my sister’s wedding. Let me walk you through it, and if you still can’t do it, I’ll take care of it and you can rest. Lord knows you deserve it.”

The dress, despite the inexperience of the person taking over in its creation, looks as beautiful as the design – you’ve been trying your best to stick to Kotori’s original plan, knowing she wanted everything to be perfect. You can never do perfect, but you know what Kotori would have hated even more than it being imperfect would have been it being unfinished. She hated leaving projects incomplete; you and her mother know that better than anyone.

You’re glad to have a helping hand, since it gives you an excuse to text Honoka to ask her how she’s doing.

**Umi**

_How are you?_

**Honoka**

_Good, I’m hanging out in town:D_

You roll your eyes at the cheesy emoji, and are about to type a message before you see an incoming picture from Honoka. It’s a selfie of her, holding a peace sign to her face with a statue in the background and, more significantly, another person. You recognise the narrowed gaze, the mouse-coloured hair and piercing green eyes immediately. _Tsubasa_. You haven’t seen the girl in person for a while, but just the thought of all the problems she’s caused makes you furrow your brows.

**Umi**

_Tsubasa?_

**Honoka**

_Ye, we went for coffee and now she’s buying me a chocolate fountain!! Christmas present :)_

**Umi**

_Okay. Take care._

You shut your phone off and look at the progress Ms Minami has made. Precise hands work hard at the dress, performing complex-looking stitching which leaves you dumbfounded as you take in the sight of a Minami woman doing stitching for the first time in a while. You feel reminiscent as she works, humming a soft melody the same way her daughter always used to, stumbling on occasion as if she hasn’t put her skills to practice in a while; you suppose the act of stitching and sewing would only serve to bring back painful memories to her.

As she works, you can only feel concern for Honoka. You don’t know what Tsubasa is up to nowadays, but the two of them date back a while, all the way back to a few months after Kotori passed away. In a time where Honoka needed support and love, you were never there for her, and it’s a regret you carry with you to this day. When you weren’t there, Tsubasa was, and you would have felt grateful had it not been for the suspicious air the girl carried around her, the way she held Honoka on her arm like an accessory to show off to others, how her manipulative, sharp attitude is a perfect recipe for disaster when matched with Honoka’s ditzy, easily-led along personality. You wonder if she’s the same now.

You spend a few nostalgic hours with Ms Minami, letting her walk you through the process of sewing the traditional Minami way. You imagine this is how she taught Kotori when she was younger; the thought comforts you as you stitch and sew. Eventually, you realise it’s getting late when you see a missed call from your mother, and you excuse yourself from the Minami home after a long hug from Ms Minami herself.

“I’m so glad you came here today,” she mutters into your head. “It’s nice to know that you still care so much about her… after all this time.”

“I’ll always care about her,” you reassure her. “The world may keep spinning, but her memories have left a mark here that I won’t let be forgotten.”

She nods, content, and sighs happily before pulling away from you. “I was always so afraid of facing the fact that she never finished her dress. I remember how determined she was, Umi; she would stay up late at night, she’d blow all her money on materials and I’d find her sketching ideas at the dinner table. So when she… when she passed, I couldn’t bear to see the dress every time I walked into her room. So I was a coward, and shoved it towards the back of the wardrobe as if that would make me forget it was there.”

You reach a hand forward to rest on her arm, but she stops you.

“However, you’ve shown me nothing but strength today, and so… I’ll be sure to keep it on the mannequin from now on.” She smiles and nods at you, and you feel a genuine response creeping up onto your face.

“Thank you, Ms Minami. I… I feel as though everyone else has been stronger than me, so I’m trying to redeem myself. I was selfish and blind to everybody’s emotions, and I’m so-”

She shushes you. “We all make mistakes like that. We all get caught up in our own emotions and neglect others. Everybody does it, Umi, and nobody is blaming you. Honoka can stand on her own, and she really came through for Kotori. I’ve been struggling so much over the years, and I’ve done as much as I can to fix it. All of her other friends, people she perhaps didn’t know as well, were torn apart by it as well – just the mere absence of her cheerful aura was enough to cast a dark shadow over Otonokizaka, and there is absolutely nobody to blame for it.”

You nod, seeing the sense in her words. Emotion swells in your heart, and you express it by wrapping your arms around Ms Minami again and hugging her tightly, as if she is your own mother, as if you’re trying to stop her from ever leaving. Just one of many pieces of Kotori lying scattered over the Earth is right before you, and you won’t let her go.

Not again. Not like last time.

~

_December 26 th, 2012_

Christmas passes as usual, except for the additional privileges of being able to kiss Kotori under the mistletoe when nobody’s looking, and holding mitten-covered hands, and snuggling in the winter cold – okay, Christmas is a little different this year, and the next day is just as much, if not more different. You wake up in her bed on Boxing Day, the dull light seeping in through the windows to show that you’ve slept in. You’re wearing a black night-dress which you must have changed into last night, and Kotori wears her matching white one, an alpaca plushie pressed to her chest as she sleeps soundly, eyes fluttered shut peacefully and a gentle smile on her lips.

Your phone buzzes and you check it to see that Honoka’s posted a photo to her Facebook. You swipe open the notification and see a group selfie. Honoka is posed at the far right, holding the phone with a goofy smile on her face, donning the same Santa hat everyone had and wearing a green Christmas jumper – in the background is yourself and Kotori, both wearing matching jumpers. Kotori holds up her Christmas alpaca plushie to the camera as you have your arm around her shoulder, smiling. In the background but not posing is Ms Minami, who is holding a platter of turkey, and a few other of Kotori’s family members, her grandpa sitting asleep on the armchair. It’s such a familial picture that you smile and like the photo, choosing not to comment. You never really like putting sentimental comments on Facebook, where everyone can see it – Honoka’s account is private, but there are a lot of girls from school who are friends with her, even ones she rarely speaks to.

The time reads 11:58am, and you reach over to nudge Kotori awake before stopping. She mumbles something unintelligible under her breath and you smile slightly, leaning forward to place a light peck on her shoulder. She hums and stirs, causing you to jump back, afraid that you’ve been caught, but she just shifts and drifts back to sleep. You breathe a sigh of relief and lean back on the bed, defeated. You’re not going to have the willpower to shake such a sleepy girl awake.

Thumping sounds from the hallway outside Kotori’s room, and you almost instantly recognise the quick, clumsy footsteps as Honoka’s. There’s a second’s pause before she knocks on the door, and you call her in sleepily. She’s still wearing her Christmas jumper, with her hair slightly dishevelled, most likely from sleeping with her Santa hat sitting lopsided on her head. She gives you an equally lopsided grin, and you feel a wave of protectiveness as you see her stand there, her jumper so oversized the sleeves flop around when she moves her arms, scruffy hair and a goofy expression on her face – she truly represents the Honoka everyone knows and loves in this moment.

“Morning, Kotori and-!” she begins loudly, only for you to place a finger hurriedly to your lips and gesture towards the sleeping beauty beside you, who stirs a little at the volume of Honoka’s voice.

“Oops!” Honoka lowers her voice and quietens down to a stage whisper. “ _Good morning, Kotori and Umi_!”

“Morning, Honoka,” you murmur in response. Your hand, which is resting on the mattress next to you, moves up in a lazy wave towards your klutzy friend, who repeats the gesture with a goofy smile. You pat the space next to you and she clambers onto the bed, almost kicking the bedside table in the process, and snuggles up between yourself and Kotori in a little ball of happiness.

You stay there for a while, propped up on the bed with Honoka and Kotori lying side-by-side next to you. You listen to just their breathing, and try not to giggle at the fact that Honoka is attempting (unsuccessfully) to match her breathing with Kotori’s steady, regular exhales. It’s times like these you feel waves of nostalgia hitting you – you’re sure you’ve been in this exact position before, numerous times in the past. You always used to take naps together as kids, after all. You wonder when you stopped taking naps so often. There’s always a point where children begin to grow up rapidly, but you can’t pinpoint when yours was.

It’s always been the three of you. Just the three of you. Nobody else has ever dared touch or come close to the friendship you have – nobody’s attempted to be part of your group, not wanting to intrude on the seemingly unbreakable bond. You all have friends aside from each other, but none of those friendships are even close to what you have. No lies. No hurt feelings. No… no secrets.

At least, until now.

Your heart sinks slightly as you realise the meaning behind you and Kotori’s secret relationship. You’ve never kept any secrets from one another – despite Honoka’s oblivious nature, you’ve always felt it necessary to tell her everything as well. But now there’s a barrier between yourself, Kotori and Honoka. You and Kotori cannot act like lovers in public, since people will find out, and Honoka doesn’t even know that you and Kotori are a couple in the first place. There are thin barriers between all of you, and you know all it takes is one sentence to break them down.

With a deep breath, you pray silently to yourself that it goes well. Kotori said to you earlier that she didn’t mind if you told Honoka, and that she’d wait for when you were ready. You think you’re ready now. You turn to Honoka, and pat her gently on the head.

“Honoka? Are you still awake?”

With a yawn, she nods.

“Can you sit up? I need to tell you something.”

With that, she freezes, tensing up for a moment and causing a horrendous feeling of guilt to overcome you. She recovers from it almost instantly and sits up, turning to face you with an expression of curiosity.

“Well… recently, something happened between me and Kotori which we didn’t tell you about immediately.” You decide it’s best to just say it, and open your mouth to blurt out the sentence, before Honoka interrupts.

“D-Did you and Kotori have a fight?” she exclaims, eyes widening and voice wavering as she stares at you desperately. You realise you were speaking in a grave tone of voice, and you practically feel yourself paling.

“N-No! Nothing like tha-”

“Please don’t fight! I love you two more than anything in the world, please don’t fight! If I lose you, I lose everything! You’re like… you’re like sisters to me!” She pleads, and it’s the most urgent you’ve ever heard Honoka be, her voice frantic and eyes welled with tears.

“No! We’re not… we’re not fighting, we… _Iaskedhertobemygirlfriendandshesaidyes_!”

There’s silence for a moment, as Honoka’s eyes widen slightly with realisation. Next to her, Kotori mumbles a little as she stirs, shifting the blanket around and causing both yourself and Honoka to freeze. You watch as her eyes slowly flutter open, squinting against the light of the room and falling upon the situation in front of her.

“Is everything okay?” she says drowsily, propping herself up on her elbows. Her eyes are glazed over, still half-asleep, and yet concern still shows on her face. It’s something you’ve always admired about her – her overwhelming concern for others.

“You two…” Honoka looks between you two, looking in shock for a moment before her eyes well up with tears. You’re prepared to lunge forward and hug her and comfort her, before you realise she’s smiling as the tears spill down her cheek.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she stumbles out between laughs. Kotori looks both confused and worried for her friend, and you just allow yourself to smile, watching Honoka as she giggles. “You’re both so silly sometimes. And that’s… that’s coming from _me_!”

“Honoka, we were just scared. We didn’t want to ruin the bond the three of us had together.”

Kotori’s eyes light up slightly with realisation, and she giggles too. “Ah, so Honoka finally knows, huh…”

“Yeah. I figured it was for the best.”

Kotori looks at you, and for a moment you sense tiredness in her eyes, a sort of exhaustion you’ve never seen on her before. It’s gone in a glimpse and replaced with a smile. “I figured that too. I was waiting to bring it up to you.”

“Guess communication is key.”

Honoka curls up where she was lying before. “Now you two are like my parents as well as my best friends,” she mumbles happily into the pillow. “Just don’t go kissing and all that gross stuff around me, okay?”

Kotori giggles again and you flush red. “No problem, Honoka,” she says, and you feel a warm sensation in your heart as you watch Kotori cuddle up to Honoka with a soft smile.

You forget the temporary shift in Kotori’s eyes you saw before, you forget the moment between you telling Honoka and her laughing, you forget all your problems and just focus on the happiness fluttering in your heart, on the sounds of Kotori’s giggles and Honoka’s happy sobs, and, most of all, on the feeling of everything being absolutely, undoubtedly, perfectly _right_.

~~

_February 10 th, 2017_

You blow gently on the steaming mug, attempting to cool it down, hands wrapped around the cup, causing them to be far warmer than the winter wonderland around you. Snow layers the ground elegantly, glistening from the odd sight of the sun peeking out from greying clouds, and somewhere behind you a child’s laughter can be heard. Your name is scribbled neatly across the cup in black marker pen, the only thing keeping you from losing yourself to the atmosphere – it reminds you that you remain yourself, even after all this time, everything that’s happened over the years.

To say life hasn’t been hard would be a lie. You still wake up occasionally with a heavy feeling in your chest, and attempt to get up for around half an hour before giving up and emailing in sick to class. Your studies have been significantly harder, since you’ve been balancing studying, working on the dress and any other activities, which have become limited lately. You find yourself having hardly any time for socialising, meaning you’ve become a lot more reserved. You were initially; you’ve always been an introvert, but you’re finding it increasingly difficult to carry conversations without stumbling or excusing yourself. It doesn’t matter, though. You still text Honoka frequently, sometimes even calling if you’re up for it. When you’re with her, you feel a sense of reminiscence, as if you’ve been carried to the past. In her presence, you can close your eyes and soak it up, as if Kotori is there with you, just like it used to be.

There’s a sort of ominous air in your life at the moment. You don’t know what it is, if you’re almost foreshadowing future events, but you decidedly ignore it. Whatever happens, happens. You’ve learned the hard way that fate takes no prisoners, that even the sweetest of people can be taken cruelly from your hands, that life doesn’t care about the weight of your sins or the kindness of your heart before it tears you apart.

As nihilistic as the thought is, it’s soothed you over the months. You’ve been able to take more risks. You don’t hesitate before you begin sewing now – even if the finished project is imperfect, it’s _finished_ , and you’re sure if Kotori was around to see you working on the dress she’d be impressed nonetheless. Even Ms Minami is surprised to see you hard at work, commenting on how you’ve become defter with a needle recently, how you’re improving skills you never predicted you’d even pick up on. You agree with her, of course. You’d never have expected to learn to sew; that was always what Kotori did, her own little happy place, something she did to ease her mind. You all had those little things. Kotori sewed, you wrote, Honoka helped her mother bake. They were your coping mechanisms for any stress or sadness in your life, though when the three of you were together, there wasn’t much of that.

After Kotori’s passing, you may have turned to less healthy coping mechanisms. Honoka spent more time with Tsubasa, whereas you built a wall around yourself and ceased socialising entirely. Honoka allowed herself to be led along by other people and lost any ounce of independence she’d originally had, whereas you refused to let others guide you or help you and relied solely on yourself despite your weakness. Your poetry and stories turned darker, more sinister, and you refused to show them to anyone. Even now, they lie untouched in a hidden folder on your laptop, as if hiding them through a specific sequence of folders will make the bad thoughts and the inspiration behind the writing disappear.

It takes a long time to get back on your feet after such a fall. You remember all the times you stood by the bridge, staring down at the murky waters and wondering if anyone would really care if you jumped. You remember imagining how it would feel to slowly lose yourself in the water until nothing remained of you, how people could breathe sighs of relief in your absence and be thankful one burden had been rid of. You’d scold yourself for these thoughts, and try to re-assure yourself that people do care, but the more you thought about it, the less certain you were of this fact.

Now, you know there are people behind you. Even if it’s only Kotori’s mother and Honoka, it’s enough. Enough to make you believe that life is worth living again. The negative thoughts will never go away entirely, and the emptiness left after Kotori’s too-soon departure will never be fully patched up or filled, but you’re taking baby steps. And that’s enough.

The children continue to laugh as they skip past you, dropping a wrapper in the bin next to you, paying you no heed as they chase one another to the playground, an exhausted mother following suit at a brisk walking pace, a content smile playing on her lips as she observes them. You like to believe there’s a smile on your face as well, although you feel nothing of the sort. You take a tentative sip from the cup, and find it’s cooled down significantly since your mind began to run rampant again.

You finish your drink, bringing your phone out of your bag to scroll through the couple of notifications you have. One is from Honoka, asking to meet you at the diner – you tut to yourself, since that’s where you’ve just come from – and another is a friend request on Facebook. You swipe that notification open first, checking the name of whoever’s added you.

 _Kira Tsubasa_.

Your eyes narrow slightly, and you hesitate, but eventually decide to tap the ‘Confirm’ button. You don’t want to make immediate judgments. You haven’t even seen the girl in a couple of years, and one of your resolutions for 2017 was to be more open-minded and accepting. You respond to Honoka’s text by stating you’ll be right there, and throw the empty cup into the litter bin before standing up and making your exit, smiling at the children on the way out. You let their laughter echo in your mind, as a reminder that although the world can be so very cruel at times, it can also be amazingly beautiful.

 

Honoka is waiting for you when you arrive. You didn’t doubt her – her text seemed pretty urgent, so you made sure to get there as fast as possible. She looks up upon seeing you enter, and you notice she’s sitting at the same table as she was when she lashed out at you. The memory makes you cringe a little, but you take a seat opposite her and smile in greeting. A waitress takes your order – Honoka goes straight for a slice of strawberry cake and tea, and you simply order a hot chocolate. The winter weather has you feeling a little shivery, and hot chocolate sounds perfect to ease the cold.

You make small talk as you wait for your order. You could assume that Honoka just wanted to meet up to chat a little, but something about the way she fidgets a little more than usual suggests otherwise.

“Is something on your mind, Honoka?” you inquire, and she looks a little sheepish and fiddles with her hands.

“You could notice?” she responds.

“You’re fidgeting a lot,” you point out. “It usually means something’s on your mind. You… you can talk to me whenever you want, you know?”

She beams a little and you let out a small exhale of relief. Next to you, a girl wearing a hoodie stands abruptly, placing a handful of coins on the table and rushing out the room, holding her head down as if she’s trying to hide herself from the world. The waitress shoots a weird look after her, but takes the money and clears up the table silently. Honoka, having also watched the girl escape, looks a little confused, but quickly returns to conversation.

“Um… I’ve been invited. On holiday. With Tsubasa.”

The abrupt delivery of the sentence catches you off-guard, and your eyebrows shoot up in surprise. _Holiday_? You know Tsubasa is rich – it’s common knowledge around Otonokizaka, yet… you didn’t know she was rich enough to casually offer to take someone on holiday.

“Where?” you ask, after gathering your bearings.

“We’re not sure yet. Abroad, definitely. Maybe Europe. Italy, or somewhere nice. It’ll be during the summer, so somewhere hot and exotic would be nice…” Her voice trails off and she shakes her head. “I haven’t said yes yet, but… I really want to. She’s been really nice to me, and she buys me so much stuff and I feel guilty because I can never express myself the way I want to, and… and…”

She appears to have run out of things to say, so you lift your arm and place your hand over hers on the table.

“I can’t say I fully trust Tsubasa, but… if you want to go, there’s no point in me stopping you.” You smile at the relieved expression Honoka gives in response to this. “I just want you to be careful. I care about you, Honoka, however unlikely that’s seemed in the past. But also, as much as I care about you, I also want you to be happy and be able to take your mind off things.”

Honoka nods and leans back, looking significantly more relaxed than before. She stops fidgeting as much as she did before, but instead takes to jigging her leg up and down in an almost excited way, tilting her head from side to side, causing the small side-ponytail to sway left and right. It’s adorable, and you feel protective urges tugging at your heartstrings, deciding on the spot that it is vital that you protect the girl in front of you. Despite the small sense of independence she’s claimed over the years, she’s still misguided and hyperactive, jumping into things without thinking about long-term effects. That’s always been the Honoka you’ve known, spontaneous and active, but sometimes it can lead her to make bad decisions. You still have a bad feeling about Tsubasa, but if anything could make Honoka happy, it would be getting out of the country for a while. Going far away to some exotic place and kicking back for a while.

Your orders arrive, and as Honoka begins to devour her cake, you open up your phone and check Facebook to look properly at Tsubasa’s profile. Her profile picture is just a picture of herself, wearing a plain black t-shirt with a guitar strap visible going over her chest. She didn’t strike you as the musical type, but you guess there’s a lot you don’t know about her. Her cover photo is set to a picture of herself with two other girls on either side of her, one with long dark-purple hair and a stylish fringe with a daring expression playing on her face, the other more delicate-looking, with mid-length ginger hair and a quaint atmosphere to her. They’re wearing formal-like attire, Tsubasa wearing a blazer jacket and trousers, the purple-haired girl with a similar jacket and a tight black skirt with opaque tights, and the ginger-haired girl wearing an elegant, simplistic dress which accentuates her curves perfectly. They look powerful – you feel as though one glare from them would be enough to knock someone unconscious.

She doesn’t appear to post often, though there are a few videos of her playing the guitar you make a mental note to watch later. There are posts thanking people for parties or business events, but nothing really personal about her. Her profile states that she studies business at university, her birthday is November 22nd, her zodiac sign is Sagittarius, and her relationship status is set to ‘It’s complicated’. You raise an eyebrow at the blatant publicity of whatever ‘complications’ are present in her love life – you’ve never understood why that option is even available there. You once had your relationship status happily set to ‘In a relationship with Minami Kotori’, but after she passed, you set it to private so nobody could see and give you even more pity than they’d already thrown at you. You still see it when you go to edit your profile for whatever reason, and it still makes your heart leap in your chest, but you’ve grown numb towards it over the years. In some way, it’s helped.

You decide you’ve stalked Tsubasa’s profile enough, and even Honoka peers at you suspiciously over her forkful of cake. You’ve noticed she’s wolfed down about three quarters of the fairly large slice already, and offer an exasperated sigh, more for show than any actual feelings of disappointment.

“You should really take the time to savour your food, Honoka.”

“It’s there to be eaten, though!” Honoka insists, the pouty tone you’re so used to reflecting in her tone. You almost smile at the way Honoka turns from an anxious mess to her old self in no time at all; almost, until you remember how worrying that can be. Honoka tends to turn to acting more ditzy and clumsy than she really is when she’s hiding something, but you know better than to press her.

You prepare to leave the diner after Honoka finishes her cake – you take care of the bill, and throw in a tip for the irritated-looking waitress. On your way out, you notice a small slip of paper on the table the hooded girl was sitting at before she stormed out. You wonder if you should show the waitress, but decide it’d be more helpful for you to drop it in the bin on the way out. However, curiosity gets the better of you when you pick up the paper, and you turn it over to reveal its contents.

It’s a photograph of a girl, evidently torn in half where her arm was supposedly meeting somebody else’s. The girl has blonde hair tied in a rather elegant-looking ponytail, and icy blue eyes which almost seem to cut through the picture, staring directly at you. Despite the coldness of her gaze, she wears a small smile on her lips, hands enclosed tightly around the hand of whoever was ripped out of the photo. You shouldn’t dwell on it – after all, it’s clearly something personal. Even while thinking this, you don’t have the heart to throw the photo away, and instead pocket it before opening the diner door for Honoka and allowing the both of you out.

 

Afternoon classes drag by quite slowly. Upon entering the hall, the professor looks over the crowd of students with a scrutinising expression, as if it’s not the same audience he sees every week at this time. After a while of pondering, he shrugs and settles down with the lesson, his dreary voice practically putting everyone to sleep. You doodle gently in your notebook – you’ve never been one for art, but sometimes your little drawings can look okay. They’re not meant to be professional art, after all; just something to keep you occupied in dull lessons.

Everyone’s minds seem to be elsewhere. You see a lot of people wistfully gaze out the window at the coats of snow layering the ground, clearly planning out how they’re going to enjoy the few inches of snow while it lasts. You even hear a few whispers across the classroom, and the professor, who normally doesn’t tolerate any form of communication in his classes, appears too exhausted to care. You suppose it’s the time of year where everyone feels sleepy and drained. You’ve basically felt that way every day for quite a few years, so it’s nothing new to you – however, the concept of having something to do other than coursework is new and thrilling. The idea of completing the dress has been your main source of motivation through studying and classwork, the main reason you wake up in the morning, apply a full face of makeup and head out to class with time to spare. You’re so unlike the girl you were mere months ago, heading out with circles under her eyes and arriving at class just in time for the beginning of the lesson, that it shocks you. You try not to think too much about it. Take every day in stride, that’s what you’re trying to do.

The snow begins to fall again in the final five minutes of the lesson, and almost everyone’s attention is diverted away from the lesson and towards the window as the beautiful sight of snow falling, sticking to trees and benches and the ground, captivates everyone. The professor, with a deep sigh, grabs a piece of chalk and writes up the assignment for next week before dismissing you a couple minutes early. You hear the sighs of relief across the room and the flurry of people beginning to pack up their stuff and race out of the study hall.

You’re the last one remaining in the class, and you watch as your professor makes his way over to a large red folder lying on his desk, opening it up and tracing his finger over a list of some sort. He growls slightly under his breath, causing you to jump, before he realises you’re still present.

“Ah, excuse me, Miss Sonoda,” he apologises, and you bow in response.

“It’s no problem, professor. I’ll be leaving now.”

“Could I just speak to you for a minute?”

You stop in your tracks. His tone doesn’t sound threatening, so you assume you’re not in trouble. You quickly make your way to his desk and he leans his chin against his hand, elbow resting on the table. He looks stressed, and you can see bags under his eyes.

“There was supposed to be a new girl joining class today. She didn’t appear to show up today, but when she does decide to come to class, could she sit by you? There are a number of spare seats, but I figured you could use a partner. Share ideas, and everything. Get your thoughts out there.”

 _So that’s what it is_. Not showing up on the first day; a pretty daring move in such a high-strung university. It’s rare for someone to transfer close to the middle of the academic year, but you shrug nonchalantly.

“Sure, if she wants.”

He looks significantly relieved. “Good. Uh… you can be on your way now, Miss Sonoda. Thank you.”

You nod in response, swinging your bag over your shoulder and leaving the classroom.

 

The sky grows dark quickly, but the snow refuses to let up, beginning to fall more rapidly as the wind blows faster. You see girls pulling their hoods up and shoving as much of their hair under as possible to avoid ruin. Cafés fill up with people trying to shelter themselves from the oncoming storm. You’re close enough to your dorm to handle the storm for a while, so you pull up your hood and keep walking, stepping onto the bridge and watching the smoke escape your mouth with each exhale.

The bridge brings back bad memories for you. How many times have you stood up here and thought about jumping? How many times have you almost gone through with it, before collapsing to the ground in a fit of tears? You can’t remember the exact number, but you sure you can count it on two hands. Usually, you’d walk the bridge with your eyes closed and pray you don’t bump into anyone, but the storm is so fierce you can’t afford to not see where you’re going. You carry on, noticing the odd absence of anyone on the bridge, until-

You see something in the corner of your vision, something you’re certain you would’ve missed if you had not looked at the exact moment a car light nearby illuminated the sight for you. You can barely make it out through the snow or the darkness, but you swear you see the faint outline of a figure standing where you’ve stood so many times before. The back of their head is covered by a black hood, and they stand, completely still, only wavering slightly from the harsh wind, staring right out ahead at the town before them.

You’re struck with a sudden pain in your head as you see exactly what someone else would’ve seen when you stood there – is that really what you looked like? The figure looks fragile, almost as if one touch will break it. You approach slowly, trying to figure out what to say on the way there, whilst simultaneously praying that the person won’t jump, _don’t jump, please, whatever you do just don’t jump…_

You reach closer to the figure, and you can tell it’s a girl – she’s wearing leggings, and you can see the curve of her hips, giving her a feminine shape. You still can’t see anything above the hips, since her hoodie disguises her, making her almost invisible to anyone who happened to look in her direction. She probably did it on purpose.

You don’t know what to say. What were you thinking, in that situation? Maybe, deep down, there was a desire for someone to help you down. You never received such help. Nobody ever noticed you – you were always the one to help yourself down. You saved yourself. But you know nothing about this girl; does she have the willpower to save herself? Or could she be swayed if you spoke up? You don’t have much time to decide, since any minute now _she’ll jump, oh God she’s going to jump_ , and you need to make up your mind before it’s too late.

“Stop!”

Out of all the words you could have said, you’re sure you picked the worst. The girl doesn’t even flinch, keeping her gaze fully focused ahead. You notice her legs stiffen as she realises she’s been seen, but she doesn’t turn, doesn’t move in a way that could suggest she’s changed her mind. It’s as if she doesn’t want to look back, that one look into another human’s eyes will make her step down.

She speaks a single word, in a voice far higher and softer than you expected, yet still loud enough to ring in your mind after it is said.

“Leave.”

Just the sound of her broken voice alone makes you remember things, things you’ve repressed to the back of your memory. Pushing through these negative thoughts, you focus your attention on saving this girl first. You know there’s hope for everyone, no matter how broken they may seem. If there had been someone to save you back then, perhaps the past few years would have been bearable. Perhaps you could have woken up in the morning and been able to stay out of bed for more than five minutes before falling back into the pit of depression and loneliness you called your bed. But you, just like the girl before you now, refused any help you were offered on the basis that you believed you could do it on your own. And you did, but just barely. There were times your feet were nearly off the bridge, and those were the only times you ever really felt anything. You want to say all of this now, but there’s no time, it’s like a clock ticking in your mind, warning you to choose your words carefully.

“I’ve stood there before, you know,” you call out, through the blistering cold and into the thick air that lies between the two of you. “I’ve stood in that exact place and stared out over the same sight, but I’m still here. Now. Alive. Breathing.”

“Good for you,” the girl responds, her tone heavily sarcastic. But she doesn’t move. She doesn’t step forward, nor does she step backward. You know you can buy more time before you figure out what to say.

“I rejected help because I thought I could handle everything on my own. But the stress builds up, until you find yourself here. Staring down and wondering if anyone would care if you ended your life.” You take a deep breath, ignoring the aching feeling in your throat from the cold air. “I don’t know how many times I’ve stood there, but it’s enough. Enough to keep me awake at night, thinking about how I could have jumped, how many things I would have missed if I had jumped. But at the same time, I’m glad I didn’t.”

The girl remains quiet, her head dipping down slightly. You don’t know if anything you’re saying is getting through to her, but you try anyway, because if you can save yourself, you sure as hell can save someone else.

“I know we’re different people. Hell, I don’t even know you. But I know that there is hope for everyone. It sounds… cliché as hell, but it’s all I can think of to say. If you think you’re at rock bottom, it can only go up from there.”

“No it _can’t_ ,” the girl responds, her voice cracking as she speaks. “Do you know how it feels to feel completely pathetic? _Helpless_? There is no going up from here. There’s no going anywhere, unless I… unless I make myself go, entirely.”

“I know how it feels,” you cut in frantically. “Trust me when I say this. I’ve felt truly helpless before. Like everything was out of my control. But when that happens, you _take_ control. Life is what you make of it, and there are constant opportunities all around us to turn things around.”

“I can’t turn anything around,” she speaks again, her voice more steady. “I lost everything close to me. I can never go back home, I have nobody to turn to, I have no _future_. It’s all useless.” She steps forward, and you follow suit, getting close enough to the edge of the bridge to pull her down by the legs as a last resort.

“There is a future out there. We know nothing about it, but it’s _there_. We create our futures through the choices we make. A lot of people don’t know where they’re going in life – hell, I haven’t even thought about that yet – but you’re here now. Looking too far ahead can make you stress out, and… and I know it sounds cliché, but things will get better. They always do. After a traumatic event, or a bout of depression, things inevitably look up. Take it from someone who’s been in your position countless times, and still spends nights wondering why I’m still alive. It doesn’t need to reflect your actions.”

The girl is silent for a few more moments, showing no signs of either lowering herself from the bridge or jumping. When she speaks up again, her voice is frail, as if she’s aged since the last time she spoke.

“The only person I ever loved who loved me back is gone. There’s nothing left.”

With a single line, you feel a pang in your heart. It hits home too hard, what she says; you feel frustrated, because you know her exact feeling, you know how much it hurts to lose someone you cared for so deeply, someone you prioritised over everybody else, and yet you still couldn’t keep them with you. You don’t know if this girl lost this person the same way you lost Kotori, but one thing you know for certain is that you have no shortage of empathy for this girl. Not by a long shot.

“I know.” Your voice quietens, too, hushed out and dragged by the wind gently so only the girl on the bridge can hear you. “I lost everything too. Once. But when you lose everything, you can’t lose any more. You can only gain.”

You speak so quietly you’re not sure she can hear, but by the way she relaxes slightly, something tells you she heard your exact words. It feels like an hour before either of you move, but just as you look up again you see her take a step back and turn herself around to face you. You can’t see much under the hood, but you see the pale face of a girl, a girl who looks just as broken as you, so much so that you feel as if you’re staring into the eyes of your past self. Dark circles make her eyes look panda-like, sleep-deprived, and her lips are dry and cracked. Her eyes seem dark in the lighting and from the dullness of her expression, but behind the shadows, if you squint, you can make out a hint of turquoise. A strand of purple hair flicks across the centre of her forehead, sticking to her face. When you look at her, all you see is pain. You wonder if she sees the same when she looks back at you.

Not needing to exchange words, the girl crouches down until she’s sitting, and you reach your hand out to hers. She extends hers, and you note the smoothness of the skin on her hand, the paleness of her complexion as she entwines her fingers with yours. You tug gently, and she lands in front of you, straightening herself to the same height as you, locking eyes with you in a silent thank you.

You hate to break the silence, but you can’t go on staring at her like this. “My name is Umi,” you say, your voice sounding harsh, cutting through the silence mercilessly like a blade. “Umi Sonoda.”

The girl nods slowly, and before you can ask her what her name is, she responds with a hushed, “Nozomi Tojo.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Nozomi,” you say, the formality almost laughable considering the situation. You suppose the other girl – Nozomi, you could say now – feels the same, as the slightest hint of a smile flashes on her lips as they upturn a little bit.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Umi.”

A gust of air causes you both to shiver, and the expressions on both your faces clearly tell one another that you need to find shelter from the storm. You don’t know if it’s the cold or the adrenaline that makes your heart race, but you take Nozomi’s hand like you did when you were helping her down, and begin to walk.

 

The walk home starts silently. You walk, hand-in-hand, past the diners and shops and places where people are hiding out from the storm, in the middle of the road. For once, you don’t feel wary of other people watching you. The atmosphere makes you feel as if you’re alone, just the two of you. Shop windows disappear, diner music fades into nothingness – all you feel is the cold of the storm and the warmth of Nozomi’s hand as you walk back to your dormitory.

Somewhere along the way you remember asking Nozomi if she had a place to sleep at, to which she told you she didn’t want to go back there. You must have offered her to sleep at yours, and she must have accepted. You remember unlocking the door to your room, laying out a duvet on the ground, setting up pillows and then returning to your own bed. You remember being so tired, so delirious from the previous events that the only thought running through your head was to sleep.

The thing you remember the most clearly is Nozomi peeling off the black hoodie she’d been hiding behind the entire time. You remember the longest, most beautiful purple hair you’ve ever seen falling behind her back, you remember seeing scars traced along her upper arms, you remember thinking how frail she looked. You really can’t describe it any differently. Frail. Fragile. Delicate. Almost like some sort of ancient doll. The scars reminded you of time spent in the hospital after failed suicide attempts, the people you met there, the ones with self-inflicted injuries littered all over their body, from burns to bruises to scars to God knows what else.

You’re not sure if you talked to Nozomi much at all – the previous events had left her exhausted and you in a state of mind you’ve never really come across before. You’ve never saved anyone like that before. You’d wished, hoped, _prayed_ that you could have saved Kotori’s life, but you failed. This time, for the first time, you succeeded in saving a life, and you don’t know how you’re supposed to feel about it. Accomplished? Happy? Melancholy? Names of emotions whirl around your mind, but none seem to match your true feelings. You feel tired. Exhausted, even. There’s not much on your mind beside sleep at the moment.

One of you must have drifted off first, but if it was Nozomi, she slept as quietly as when you were walking back. You fall into slumber quickly, and when you wake up, Nozomi is gone, leaving behind only a single note of paper with a simple ‘thank you’ scrawled on in messy handwriting and signed with her name. You sigh at the quietness of the room and your own tiredness from the previous night’s events. You suppose it would be best for you to attend classes today, since you’ve been missing them quite often lately. You just feel a lot heavier recently – you suppose it’s one of those periods where you feel constantly lost, which your professors are no strangers to. You know they understand, but you still need to attend class for the sake of your grades – you don’t want to use excuses to dishonour your family. The mind-set of bringing honour to the Sonoda name has made you neglect your own needs many times before, but when it comes to grades, you know it’s important, not only for your parents, but for yourself as well.

Ignoring the heaviness in your legs, you get up and begin to prepare for the day. You shower, having the same old small talk with the same girl who’s usually in there at the same time as you – you exchange greetings, she complains about whatever class she has today, you check each other’s makeup and you leave. It’s the only time any girl like her ever talks to you. You’re not the most popular, but people tend to leave you alone as well. Especially people who went to Otonokizaka and know what you’ve been through. You don’t know if you’re relevant enough for the word of Kotori to spread, but you guess the story would have anyway, since it’s rare for something like that to happen to someone so young in such a peaceful town.

You head to class, ignoring once again the pounding headache you get just from being outside. You swallow down some pills, praying they’ll help in some way. You were prescribed medication for depression a long time ago, so you’ve long since adjusted to swallowing pills dry. No one pays much heed to you as you enter the building, into class, only to see something you didn’t expect.

At your desk, sitting on the normally empty seat beside you, is Nozomi. Her hair is styled differently, sectioned off into two twin-tails falling down her back, the fringe combed and styled neatly. She looks a lot cleaner than she did back at the bridge, but you can still see the shadows under her eyes, the empty expression on her face. She looks up at you and widens her eyes in recognition – you approach the desk and take your seat, offering her a smile.

“You’re the girl who was meant to sit here,” you point out, and she nods.

“I haven’t showed up to many classes yet, but…” Her voice trails off, and you know what she means without her having to finish the sentence. Like you, Nozomi’s been neglecting her classes due to whatever’s been going on in her life. You can see that she feels uncomfortable where she is by the way she tenses up whenever anyone looks in her direction or walks close to her. Even you being beside her is making her look around anxiously and fidget with her hands.

“This class is okay. Everyone’s nice, and the material is really interesting.”

Nozomi looks down and smiles. “That’s reassuring, I guess.”

Before you can speak again, the class begins, and within minutes you’re settled down and working. It feels weird, being in the class environment, even weirder when Nozomi is sat next to you, fidgeting like she isn’t hearing anything the professor is saying. You notice that the professor is picking on people to answer questions, and you lean over and whisper.

“He only asks the people he knows are confident to answer questions. Don’t worry.”

She visibly relaxes and smiles at you. You know it’s just a smile out of courtesy, but you return it, because you’ve done that same smile so many times and you know it’s just better if the other person accepts it and doesn’t push it. You can see she’s started to doodle in her notebook, but you can’t see what she’s drawing. You don’t want to be nosy anyway, so you focus on the lesson.

Class passes without much trouble, beside Nozomi’s occasional tensing which makes you increasingly stressed as time goes by, until the professor signals the end of the lesson. He hands out an assignment, making some other students groan – Nozomi takes it and rushes out the building, and you take yours, following suit.

Judging from the way she hurries away, you guess she doesn’t want to spend any more time on campus than necessary. You wonder where she goes between classes – when you were taking her home after the bridge incident, she said she didn’t want to go back to wherever she stayed. You don’t want to push her, however, so you leave your curiosities in your mind and text Honoka to meet up again. The two of you have been spending a lot more time together – sometimes she watches you work on the dress, sometimes she helps, and sometimes the two of you simply hang out together at a coffee shop or something. It’s been nice to re-connect with her, and since she’s running off on holiday with Tsubasa sometime soon, you want to spend all the time you can with her.

After all, your friendship group has already been torn apart once. You don’t want that to happen again.

 _Never_.

~~~

_February 19 th, 2013_

The usual gloomy February weather is replaced with sunshine for a short period of time, meaning everybody had the same intention – make the most of the sunny weather before winter takes its toll again. There are a significantly higher amount of people outside, more children playing on the playground, and everyone looks a little more at ease. You and Honoka sit on the bench looking out onto the playground, shifting your feet anxiously as you await the arrival of Kotori, who, much unlike herself, is late to something she planned herself.

The text message had you worried. All it had said was where to meet and that she needed to talk to you. Upon arrival, you noticed Honoka had arrived first – she’s rarely on time, let alone early, and the strangeness of it all caused a tight feeling to form in your chest. You reassure yourself that it can’t be that bad, and instead look out upon the sunny surroundings and take in the sight of regular Otonokizaka life, the children laughing and chasing one another, a red ice cream truck serving cold treats to families and people sitting outside of the café, drinking coffee or tea and eating lunch.

Kotori arrives during your reflection. She looks tired, and smiles when she sees the both of you. Honoka stands up and embraces her in a hug.

“I got here earlier than both of you!” she boasts, and you smile.

“I was pretty surprised by that,” you respond, before looking at Kotori. As soon as you meet her gaze, she looks away, causing you to furrow your brows in confusion. “Why were you late, anyway? That’s unlike you.”

“I got held up at home,” she says lightly, still not meeting your eyes. “Shall we walk?”

“Where are we going?” Honoka questions, and Kotori points towards a trail going upwards. You know immediately what she means, and you’re sure Honoka does as well.

Silently, the three of you venture up the trail. The atmosphere is strange. Honoka is bouncy and keeps asking questions as usual, and Kotori replies in her normal tone of voice, but there’s something _wrong_. You keep your eyes on Kotori the entire time and notice that she stays in the lead, avoiding eye contact with both yourself and Honoka, keeping her head bowed slightly and walking quicker than usual. The three of you have walked up this trail so many times before – it was where you spent most your time as kids, on the swing-set at the top, looking out upon the town, climbing trees to get a better view and writing promises in the ground with sticks. There are so many memories here, and with every step you feel as though they’re being tainted, violated.

It’s a while before you reach the top, but still quicker than usual thanks to Kotori’s fast pace which the two of you somehow managed to keep up with. She takes a seat on one of the swings, Honoka taking the other. There are only two, so you lean against a tree so you’re facing both of them. Kotori looks straight out ahead, onto the cliff edge with a stunning view of the entire town. The sun shines over the roofs of the buildings, illustrating a beautiful sight of the sleepy hometown which is so dear to all three of you.

You stay silent for anywhere from three minutes to ten. You wonder if anyone’s going to break the silence – even Honoka has taken to merely shuffling her feet on the ground awkwardly, unable to remain still for long periods of time, yet somehow not speaking either. Kotori is first to break the silence, in a tone of voice you’ve never heard from her.

“I… need to tell you all something.”

Your heart feels like it sinks in your chest just from the way she speaks. You knew something was wrong. You could tell, from the way she avoided eye contact to her lateness to the vacant look in her eyes. Thoughts keep swirling around your mind, invading every part of it, practically driving you crazy as you just stare at her.

“What is it, Kotori?” you ask, and she looks as though she flinches even at the sound of your voice. It takes her a while to gather herself, and she stands up.

“Y-You all know that I’ve had to go out of school a lot recently, right?”

You nod. You did realise that Kotori had been leaving school early for appointments, but she had always assured you that it was fine. Honoka’s eyes are starting to widen, and you decide to try and shut your feelings away until she’s done talking.

“I… I was experiencing some weird symptoms, and my mum told me we should go and check with the doctor. H-He said it was nothing serious, but he needed to run some tests, hence why I was leaving school early. They did a lot of tests, and wouldn’t tell me anything. My mum told me it would be okay. The symptoms weren’t too bad. She thought it’d just be… some weird illness which I’d have to go on medication for. I was sleeping a lot more, so I was late to school a lot. A-And, this was only this morning but…”

You feel your heart sink more with each word she says. It doesn’t seem comprehendible – you know the directions this story could go in, and none of them sound good. You don’t want any of them to be true. You cling to your hope that this is fine, this is okay, _she’s okay_ …

Kotori takes a deep breath, stepping closer towards the cliff edge as she speaks more hurriedly, as if she’s just trying to get everything out before she loses her confidence to speak.

“We got a call from the doctor and we had to go there straight away. He showed me the results of my test and I didn’t understand anything because I’ve never been good at science or biology but my mum’s face went pale and he looked sad and he apologised and sent my mum out of the room for a bit. T-Then, he told me… he told me it was…” She begins to choke up, and you know immediately that it’s not okay. She isn’t okay.

You can’t explain how you feel after that.

“It’s… not good. It’s really bad. I… I’ve had this for months and I haven’t known, I just thought I was tired because I was working so hard on the dress, I never knew this but then he told me and he said I need to go to the hospital urgently and… and I don’t even know what they’re going to do but it’s going to _hurt_ and I… I don’t want to lose you two, but I don’t know what’s going to happen. He hasn’t been able to tell me whether everything will be okay because nobody knows. And t-the thing they’re doing in the hospital…”

You can see Honoka out of the corner of your eye. She’s frozen on the swings, not moving, tears welling in her eyes as she stares wide-eyed in front. You feel your own legs weaken with every word, your mind blank, her words still not sinking in.

“It’s a really complicated procedure. And… and the d-death rate… is high. I t-thought I should tell you… just in case I don’t make it out alive. A-And that’s… very likely.”

You’re certain you can hear the birds stop singing. Everything goes silent as you look forward at her. Honoka’s frozen. The tears never fall from her eyes, but you can feel your own begin to form. Your legs feel too strange now. It feels as though you’re going to-

 _collapse_.

You fall onto the ground, your knees hitting the ground, and Kotori turns and looks at you for the first time since she arrived, her eyes wide with concern, but she remains planted where she is. She doesn’t move towards you, only looks at you. Honoka doesn’t move. Your hand clenches into the ground, grasping at blades of grass, and you feel the tears on your face but you don’t know why you’re crying because nothing’s wrong, _this can’t be happening, please not Kotori-_

“I’m sorry.”

She turns away from you, as if she can’t stand looking at you anymore, and instead stares out over the cliff, the same view you’ve all watched together from when you were kids to now, holding hands, inseparable, never to be apart. _Never apart_. You could never be split up – anyone who tried wouldn’t succeed, because you were all just that close. Nothing can tear you apart. _So why are you all so far from each other?_ You don’t know why you’re on the ground, sobbing, you don’t know why Kotori is turning away from you or why Honoka is grasping the chains on the side of the swings so tightly. You don’t cry in front of people, so why are you crying now? _Why are you crying_?

Time passes. You don’t know what happens in that time. You do know that when you’re shaken from whatever trance you were forced into, Honoka’s gone. Kotori hasn’t moved an inch, remaining frozen on the ground where she stares out. You’re not even sure if she’s breathing with how still she is. You’re not even sure how long it is until she cannot breathe ever again.

The sleeve of your jumper is damp. You pull away and see the stain of tears on the white fabric, a symbol of your weakness, reminding you how you fell to the ground. Everything in your mind feels hazy, as if you’re dreaming, and all you can think about is Honoka’s absence from the swing – _did she run away?_ – and Kotori, standing only a few metres away from you, yet seemingly so far away.

You can’t think of anything to say. You manage to raise yourself to your feet, stumbling on the ground as your weak legs adjust to the strain, and you see Kotori flinch, moving for the first time as you stand, shoulders tensing and head turning ever so slightly. You can’t see her eyes through her bangs, but you can sense the feeling radiating off her. It’s not sadness. Not anger. It’s guilt.

You want to say so many things. You want to hug her and hold her close and pray that she doesn’t leave you, beg any god that exists not to take her from you, kiss her like you did only mere months ago for the first time, lost in happiness and security, as if the love you gained that day could never leave. You realise now how naïve that was of you, to think that everything would go smoothly. You stepped blindly into a relationship with her, caring only about your instincts over the future, focusing solely on the present and leaving the past behind.

There was so much more that was to come. Your birthday, in just under a month, where she promised you she’d work on a special project – more Christmases together, your anniversary on September 10th, birthdays, Valentine’s days, holidays together, trips to the beach, surprise gifts, morning kisses, talking about the future, graduating school together and heading into the future _together_. Everything was going to be the two of you against the world. She had promised she would never leave you, and you said the same to her.

It seems fate has other plans.

Words float around in your mind, but none of them seem right. You can’t bring yourself to even cry anymore. Looking at the back of the girl you loved more than anything else, knowing she could barely bring herself to look at you, hit you hard, but not as hard as the reason behind it. _Illness… medical procedure… high death rate…_ The words seem alien to you, unwanted, uncomfortable in the air between you. They echo in your mind and seem to invade the entire area you are standing in – childhood memories of playing on the swing-set are replaced with Honoka’s frozen body clinging onto the sides, yourself collapsed on the ground in front of the tree the three of you used to climb, and Kotori gazing emptily out upon the town you all called home.

You try to choke something out, but all that escapes your throat is a scratchy noise, carried away in the wind as the weather turns darker. A dark cloud looms over the cliff, almost taunting you for the sudden change in mood, and you realise you can’t say anything. There’s nothing for you to say. With a single conversation, everything has changed, and you know the only thing waiting here for you is more hurt. You turn away from Kotori, as painful as it feels, and walk, each step away from her tugging further at your heart until you’re clutching your chest walking back down the trail, your eyes numb from crying and a dull pain thudding through your head, mind hazy, body growing weaker as you walk. The top of the trail remains silent, until you leave, past the playground, along the street, home, ignoring your mother calling for you, into your room, and collapsing on the bed.

She didn’t even speak a single word to you as you left.

~~~

_February 19 th, 2017_

You find it under your bed, hiding away behind boxes of unwanted stuff you didn’t have the heart to throw away, and old photographs that were too painful to look at, so you chose instead to hide them as if the pain would go away by doing so. A black book, with ‘DIARY’ engraved on the front in gold lettering. Not the flashiest of covers, but you remember this being your output years ago. Precious memories and hidden feelings lie in this book, one you haven’t opened since you wrote in it for the last time. One you promised yourself you would never read again, in fear of bringing back the same depression which once controlled your life.

You’ve always broken your own promises to yourself. It’s strange – you’re a relatively trustworthy person to those who need it, and you always keep your vows when you swear not to tell a secret, but you can never trust yourself. You’re your own worst enemy, and that’s how it’s been for as long as you can remember. It was always _you_ beating yourself up over below-average grades, missed shots in archery, not being able to rhyme your poetry – you tortured yourself for it all.

But compared to those shallow bouts of self-loathing, this one seems to invade your conscience much more as you sit, tracing a finger over the dusty cover of the book, compelling yourself not to open it but knowing you’ll just end up betraying yourself. Your own wishes, from the past – there’s a reason you swore never to open the book, and you choose to ignore it and blindly open to the first page, already feeling the memories come flooding in from reading the first paragraph.

 

_February 17 th, 2011_

_Dear Diary,_

_Is that how people are supposed to start these entries? Honestly, I’ve read a lot of novels and seen films where diaries are almost centric to the story, but I never understood it myself. I mainly express my emotions and thoughts through more creative, abstract means, hiding them behind stories of other people, but I suppose there is logic to writing down things as they are. Writing down details of my life without manipulating them and implementing them into someone else’s. I guess that’s why I picked up this tattered old book from Kotori’s attic when we cleaned it out and decided to make it useful._

You remember the day you started vividly. You were thirteen, just about to turn fourteen. Mere months away from starting high school, in the period of time where you weren’t experiencing many feelings of doubt for yourself. Of course, you had the usual teenage insecurities about your weight, body, skin, pretty much everything appearance-wise (aside from your hair; for some reason, from the day Kotori complimented it onwards, you had never felt insecurity again, even when your mother ran her fingers through it and complained that it was far too long and greasy) and physically, but you still believed in yourself. In terms of grades, you were pretty much at the top of your class, and you thrived for the praise you received from your family after a particularly good exam. The desire to over-achieve in everything was one of your biggest driving forces at that time.

 

_There’s not much to talk about regarding my life at the moment, so I guess I’ll just go over who I am. My name is Umi, family name Sonoda, and I’m about to enter high school. I have dark hair which is very long and light brown eyes. I enjoy archery, writing, poetry and learning. I know it sounds quite boring, but bear with me._

You fight the urge to laugh at how you considered yourself boring. All you can think about is what you would give to be back in the shoes of your thirteen-year-old self, focused, productive, living a happy life with her two best friends by her side and her family encouraging her to do her best. Your life truly was at its best at that point, despite the strains on a few of your family relations.

 

_I guess the thing which makes me stand out the most would be the fact that I have two best friends who are closer to me than I could have ever imagined. I never saw myself as the type of person to have a large circle of friends, or even a smaller circle of friends. I was plain and not too good at socialising and awkward, but that didn’t drive Honoka nor Kotori away. They stayed with me for all this time, and I could never express my gratitude towards them sufficiently._

You smile softly. This time two years ago, seeing that paragraph would have made you break down in tears, remembering how much you loved the two of them and being with them. But you’ve been numbed now, numbed to the reminders of better days, knowing that they can only get better from now on. You flick the pages, looking through pages and pages of generic issues, smiling at how much the obliviously love-struck younger version of yourself gushed about Kotori, talking about how pretty and talented she was and how much she looked up to her. It’s nice to see these things now. It makes you feel more connected with your past self, the one you became distanced from after Kotori passed. You can almost feel every emotion you felt whilst writing it – you have to give props to your past self for being good at conveying feelings. You’ve always found it hard now, ever since you started therapy. Your therapist would ask you questions you couldn’t answer in words, only in concepts, ones you couldn’t properly get across to another person.

You flick through more diary entries, seeing the mundane life you lived in high school panning out. The most interesting events were ones in school, and you often just ended up talking about Kotori; you wonder how it took you so long to realise your feelings for her, even when you talked about her to this extent in your diary. After a while, you put down the diary, because you know what date it is approaching.

You think for a while, about how four years ago today, your life was changed forever. Four years ago today, you broke down on top of the hill where you had so many cherished memories with your friends – four years ago today, you lost the strongest love you’ve ever felt in your life. Four years. It’s a longer time ago than it seems, yet it feels further away, as if you’re dissociated from it, although every single detail of that scene remains firmly imprinted within the confines of your mind.

You open the diary again.

 

_Dear Diary,_

_I don’t know what to write. I can’t believe I have to write an entry like this._

_You know when someone enters your life and you just know they’re going to change you forever? Or perhaps the realisation dawning on you that someone is going to change you, that someone is going to be your everything someday. I suppose that was something I felt with Kotori; I thought our encounter on the playground as kids was the blossoming of a lifelong friendship, but everything became intense so quickly, and of course, I fell._

_She’s leaving. And I don’t mean she’s moving away, or going on holiday or something petty like that. Distance between us wouldn’t matter. But this distance is one which can’t be beaten – it’s the separation between life and death. Even writing out the word makes my entire body convulse into fits of tears. I feel pathetic. I should be there for her in her final moments, but I can’t bring myself to be. I can’t think of this._

_I don’t know why I thought writing would make me feel better. I just need to be alone. I’m sorry._

_I’m so sorry, Kotori._

The entry ends abruptly, but the feelings come swelling back, just as intense as they were that day, and you feel yourself overwhelmed by the influx of emotions infiltrating your mind and seeping into every corner and cranny to poison you with sadness. Instead of running away from it, as you did so many years ago, you decide to try a different approach. You place the diary down and lie back on the same bed you sobbed into for hours four years prior, the same bed you would craft poems on, creating beautiful and complex worlds and stories from the safety of your own room.

Ever since you transitioned to college, you’d tried to avoid returning home, in fear of seeing your parents and of being in the presence of so many memories. College dorms were stripped of everything except a bed, counter and dresser, and felt institutional and clean, with bare white walls and plain curtains looking out onto a campus. It was new, fresh, untainted. You’ve tried to keep it that way – despite the multiple depressive episodes and breakdowns you’ve had here, you’ve contained it within your dorm room. At least it persuades you to get out more, somewhat. You’re still a recluse at heart.

But today is different. You made one goal at the start of today, and that was to get out of bed (despite having no classes) and go somewhere. Somewhere painful, somewhere with memories and feelings and thoughts attached. You chose ‘home’, in the loosest definition of the word. This environment doesn’t feel like home. It feels like a sanctuary where all your worst memories are kept; from the furrow of your mother’s brows, practically telling you you’re not good enough, to the juice stain on the ground you remember being punished for with removal of electronic devices. For three days. Over a stain.

They never were fair. Not even after Kotori’s passing – they lightened up for a while, then worsened. They thought you were using your grief as an excuse for laziness, that your inability to get up most days was due to unwillingness to work, all linking back to _laziness_ and _inability_ and _not good enough_.

The door opens, and your mother enters, as if on cue. You turn your head, diary lying unfinished at your feet. You can tell when you see her that she’s sensed the atmosphere in the room – her gaze trails down to the diary and back up to your eyes and a look of understanding reads on her face. You wonder what she’ll say. If she’ll call you weak, belittle you like she always used to.

But she doesn’t say anything.

She walks towards your bed and takes a seat at the end, gently, treading lightly as if trying not to make any noise. You keep watch of her, noticing how she avoids meeting your eyes and looks down. You shuffle the diary so it’s under the duvet, and remain silent. You won’t speak first. You refuse to.

“Umi,” she says, finally, looking up so her hair moves away from her eyes and shows you the strange sense of emotion behind it. “I know… I know coming back here must be hard for you.”

 _Sympathy_? There’s something you’d never expect to hear from your mother. She’s always been heartless, cold, stern. As a full-time working woman in charge of a high number of employees, it’s in her nature to be commanding and authoritative, just like your father – with the lack of love in their marriage and the lack of affection and nurture shown to you growing up, she’s part of the reason you find it difficult to love. The only shred of romantic feelings you’ve ever felt were towards Kotori, and the way that ended up makes you afraid to ever love again, despite your knowledge, deep down, that nothing could have saved her.

“I know it seems like I never cared much for you, but I was following examples set by previous generations of our family,” she carries on, looking as though she’s regained her confidence. “The Sonoda household has always been traditional. There are documents of our family tracing back centuries, and we’ve always been a prestigious and influential house, valuing honour, valour and intelligence. Therefore, every Sonoda child has heavy expectations placed on them to do well and achieve.”

 _I know, I know, you’ve told me this a thousand times before_ , is what you want to yell, but you remain quiet. Somehow, you feel like it’s more effective that way. Your finger traces the pattern of your duvet as you refuse to meet her gaze, staring down the same way you used to do when she lectured you. But this lecture is different. There’s an apologetic edge to her voice, as if she’s trying to find the dignity to apologise and is just stalling before she manages to.

“However, these views are very old-fashioned. With times moving forward, parents are raising their children differently. They’re more open-minded, more willing to let their children have free will over their lives. At first, your father and I… we disagreed. We thought you were slacking off, we thought you… you liking girls, we thought it was wrong.”

“I only ever liked one person, and it was Kotori,” you speak up, feeling disgusted at her words; you know it’s leading up to an apology, yet the way it’s phrased makes a feeling of dread and sickness rise up in your stomach. It reminds you too much of how your family used to make you feel.

“I know,” she says quietly, looking downcast by your defensiveness. “I know, sweetie, and I tried to be accepting, but…” She looks lost for words, and you swear it’s the first time you’ve ever seen your mother look so nervous. “Your father was… very stern on the issue, and I followed him, even when my conscience told me to do otherwise. You are my daughter, my own flesh and blood, and I would never disown you over something so… meaningless, in the grand scheme of things.”

Kotori? Meaningless? You understand where she’s coming from, but something about the way she says it makes you flinch. “It’s not meaningless,” you retort back, the two of you falling into another uncomfortable silence before you break it with an ushered, “Thank you.”

“I love you,” she says, and you hear your own breath hitch. “You know that, right, sweetie?”

 _I didn’t_. You spent so long agonising over how your parents felt about you. Every report card, every test result seemed to sway their opinions. Every stumble or mistake you made brought their favour down, whereas every success made them smile and beam and gush over you. It was like yin and yang. The praise made you proud, and the criticism made you work harder. They coexisted, and it worked – you got better results, you made fewer mistakes – but at the cost of your relationship with your parents. You were never truly sure whether they saw you as a good daughter or a dishonour to the Sonoda name.

“Do I have to answer?”

She shakes her head, a solemn smile on her face. “I think it’s best for both of us if you don’t.” The conversation dies there, fading from a burning light to a dwindling flame, and you pick the diary back up, flicking through pages and pages of sadness and tear-stained paper. Your mother doesn’t intrude. After a while, she stands, wavering slightly, and leaves the room, shutting the door gently behind her.

You don’t even try to register the conversation you just had. Your mind is too full of complicated things, things you don’t want to try and understand yet your brain makes a pathetic attempt anyway. You let your weight fall back until you’re lying face-up, staring blankly at the same ceiling you’ve pondered your own existence whilst staring at many a time before. It seems kind of surreal, being back here, reminiscing on past times when you never thought you’d live long enough to reminisce.

The thought reminds you of Nozomi. You’re still overwhelmed at how you managed to get her off the bridge, how you let her sleep in your room and saw her in class. Alive. Doing well, or at least a lot better than she was the night on the bridge. You may have saved her life – of course, you’re not sure whether or not she would have jumped had you not seen her, but the mere idea that she could have done it… it’s strange. The seat next to you in class would remain empty. There would be one new grave in the local graveyard, a grave of a girl who died far too young and for far too unfair a reason. But there isn’t. Because she stepped down, joined you, and you really wish you knew the extent to which you saved her that night. Or maybe you don’t. You’re not sure if you can handle knowing that, what with your own fragility.

There’s still a lot of questions you need to ask her. For example, she was definitely in the diner when you and Honoka were, and she definitely left that torn photo on the table. The blonde girl; who is she? You know it’s intrusive of you, but you really want to find out. Since you sit by Nozomi in a class now, you’re sure you can catch her again.

After all, you’re hardly willing to let another young girl die too soon, being taken from the world unfairly and untimely. Not after Kotori. You couldn’t let yourself be responsible for that, ever again.

 _Never again_.

~~~

_February 20 th, 2012_

You’ve never liked hospitals. They’re too clean, polished, institutional, that whenever you’re in there breathing in the medical air and rubbing anti-bacterial hand wash between your fingers, you feel constrained, as if your lungs are tightening and rendering you unable to breathe. You’ve never really been in there long enough to form any bad memories or associations, but just stepping into the waiting room today feels heavy. You feel numb as you push down on the button which releases the hand wash, watching Honoka do the same with tired eyes.

Birds don’t like to be contained. You don’t exactly associate birds with being caged, trapped, unable to fly free wherever they wish. You associate birds with Kotori – carefree, beautiful, elegant creatures who have the entire world as their vessel to do as they please with it. This place, this contained, sanitised prison, isn’t a place for someone like Kotori. Not the Kotori you know; the healthy, loving, caring girl who wiped away your insecurities with simple words. But as far as you know, that Kotori has been replaced by a sick, dying girl – a bird whose wings have been broken, and can no longer fly. And the harder you try to mend those wings, the more pain she goes through, the more suffering before her inevitable demise.

You don’t want Kotori to suffer. You want her to be at peace, at rest, in her happiest and calmest possible state, but you know why you keep trying. You’re selfish. If Kotori leaves, what’s left? She’s the only beacon of hope and colour in your monochromatic world, the only driving force keeping you going through difficult times. If that’s gone, what’s stopping you from falling back into the dullness, the colourless void you’ve known to fall into before? If depression is a bottomless pit, Kotori is the net keeping you from plummeting down into the endless depths.

Yet she’s on the inside, in a hospital bed, life draining from her, whilst you’re on the outside looking in, healthy, safe, _selfish_. You can only imagine how she’d react if the roles were reversed – she wouldn’t run away from it. She’d spend as much time as possible with you before your final moments. She’d find a way to make it seem like nothing was ever going to end, like everything was okay even as you took your final breaths. If it were you in the hospital bed, you know you’d die a peaceful death, one surrounded by loved ones and tranquillity. The kind of death Kotori deserves, as long as you can bring yourself to comprehend that she’s going to be gone.

You’ve avoided mirrors since she told you. You don’t want to see the circles under your eyes from your sleepless night last night, or the redness from crying. If those really are obvious, nobody’s pointed it out to you. Honoka isn’t looking too great either, hair unruly and eyes downcast, staring at the floor as she shuffles along clumsily, so like Honoka yet so unlike her at the same time. It’s unnerving. Everything is unnerving, from the silence to the lack of silence, nurses’ chatter and distant beeping not enough to fill the air between you and Honoka.

You run into Kotori’s mother outside the entrance to her room. She’s in tears, clearly unaware of your presence as she sobs into her hands. The sight of such a normally strong woman in tears throws you off-guard, making everything seem more real. You don’t want it to feel real. _Please don’t say this is real_.

As if sensing something, her head rises from her hands, a wrecked, tear-stained face revealing itself, the face of a woman who has been truly broken. She looks at both of you, not speaking, then as if captured by an onslaught of pain, breaks down once more, leaving you to wordlessly step past her into the hospital room to find a situation you never wanted to be faced with in your life.

Atop the hospital bed lies Kotori, face pale and the area around her eyes looking almost grey. Her eyes are closed, as if in pain, brows furrowed and lip curled at the edge. It’s not just her face which is pale – her entire body is a ghostly grey colour, and you can see how much weight she’s lost even more clearly through the thin fabric of her hospital gown. She looks like a wisp of a girl, nothing like the lively, happy Kotori you’ve become so dependent on. But you refuse to break down without saying anything to her.

In spite of your trembling legs, you approach the side of the bed, seating yourself at the plastic green visitor’s chair while Honoka stands, unmoving, at the end of the bed. Her eyes open slightly, half-lidded gaze meeting yours as you see how truly weary she is. It’s like she doesn’t even have the energy to breathe, and even as the heart monitor beeps at a somewhat regular (if slightly slow) pace, it doesn’t seem like she’s even alive. She doesn’t look like the girl you know.

But she is the girl you know. Underneath the greying skin, the dull eyes and the spindly body, so different to how she looked yesterday it’s almost unbelievable, is the same Kotori you grew up with, the same girl who compliments your hair and constantly brightens your day and loves sewing and baking small treats for her friends and running and singing and…

“Umi?” It’s posed as a question, but you know she recognises you. Her eyes seem to light up, though they still maintain their tired appearance. You fight the urge to cry and scream and ask why, why, _why_ could this happen to her, _why_ …

“I’m here,” you say, your voice barely a whisper in the quiet room, but the way Kotori’s breathing evens out shows that she understands. “I’m here and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kotori.”

“Don’t apologise,” she says, each breath sounding like a wheeze. You try not to think too hard about what that signals, and instead focus on the fact that she’s alive and breathing in front of you know. “I know it’s… hard. But I just wanted to…”

“I know,” you usher, reaching out your hand. She lets hers fall beside her on the bed, and you entwine your fingers, clasping her frail hand tightly as if to imprint it onto yours.

You sit in silence, listening to her wheezing breaths, as Honoka shifts uncomfortably in front of the bed. She slowly sidles up to Kotori, slipping into the other visitor seat and clasping her other hand. Kotori looks at peace, eyes fluttering closed as she takes in the atmosphere of the final room she will see. You contemplate heading outside to get her mother, but decide against it. Perhaps Ms Minami doesn’t want her daughter to see her weakness. Whatever her reason is for staying outside, you don’t want to intrude on it.

It doesn’t feel real, as you trace the lines of her palm with your index finger, taking in every detail of her before she vanishes. She grows more weary and sickly-looking as time goes on. Nurses check in periodically, faces clouded with hopelessness. It must be hard, knowing you can’t save her. You can only imagine how it feels to watch the life of a young girl slip through your fingers. You don’t know much about what Kotori has, and you don’t want to know the details, but you can only imagine it’s unpreventable. Fatal. As if Kotori signed a death warrant the minute she entered the hospital for ‘treatment’.

You’re not sure how long you stay there. Honoka talks to Kotori for a while, but as time goes on, Kotori’s voice wears out, and the room falls back into silence. You think her last words were something like ‘don’t worry about me’. _Of course we worry about you_. She slips in and out of consciousness, as do you, eventually falling asleep with your hand enclosed in Kotori’s, the warmth of yours radiating off onto hers.

When you wake up, her hand is cold. And Honoka isn’t there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a very long time and I apologise, I've been really unmotivated and I keep switching between projects and it's kinda hard for me to focus on one thing for a long period of time. But it's finally here and I FINALLY WROTE THE SCENE I'VE BEEN STRESSING ABOUT. I stressed a lot about the bridge scene with Nozomi and Kotori's death scene, but they both ended up being more or less okay. I know there's still room for improvement but I improve with everything I write, so hopefully part 3 will be better :-) I don't know how long it will take for part 3, but it will HOPEFULLY be the final part. I had to extend it so I could get this out earlier lmao.
> 
> Thank you for reading and reviews are much appreciated!!!

**Author's Note:**

> part 2 will be coming soon but may take a while as it will hopefully be a little shorter than this part but still pretty lengthy <3


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